Mawuli Zogbenu: ‘Rich wife, poor husband’

Did you know that too much money is a burden? Just in case you are wondering, you would have noticed that a man who is just content with his little earnings would hardly construct a swimming pool at home which can endanger the life or lives of especially children.

Don’t mind my hypocrisy; I have a swimming pool at home where I breed mudfish! Generally, as human beings, everything, particularly money seems important to us till we fall sick and realise that all we need is good health with the hope that all the money could give you good health.

Money is good o, but we need just enough to help ourselves and others! I dey lie?

Oh it is very mysterious how our wives can send GHC100 to the market and come back with so much stuff. I wonder how they do it!
You, the man would go to the same market, the same sellers and with the same GHC100 and come back with less than half of the stuff your wife has bought with that same amount.

I do that occasionally if I want to give my wife a treat; not because I am ‘chisel’ like OTK’s Uncle who would inscribe his signature on corn dough to ensure that his wife wouldn’t tamper with it.

When she does, the ‘pilfering’ could easily be detected by the loss of the signature or portions of it and that could result in a fight!

Why are so excited by this useless stuff, Kofi? Hope you do not do this some of the times.

Now back to the most important ‘useless stuff’. Auntie ‘doctor fish’ my customer at the Lapaz new market always sold tomatoes to me and would create the impression she was giving me a good deal but in actual fact was cheating me and ripping me off.

These market women, some of them are rich oo! She sells only tomatoes but has a BMW saloon car and a trotro bus!

That is the reason I normally don’t agree completely with the definition of the beneficiaries of microfinance for poor people!

Noooo! Perhaps it is largely for people who don’t have access to a well-structured form of income generation.

They have money papa. When you see Auntie Doctor Fish’s mansion at Omanjor, you go bow!

Don’t be too smart o because like I always say, howvere fast your car could run, when you get to the Tema motorway, somebody will overtake you and however slow you car may run, you too will overtake someone.

Last Friday, I was with my mechanic and Auntie Dr Fish drove her BMW there with some ‘small problem’. Yes, that was the day I realized that however smart some of these market women can be, it is only auto mechanics who fleece them.

Small problem and the mechanic multiplied the cost by about 10 times and at this point, I was expecting her to ask for a bargain. She did not; she rather quickly doled out the money and was more interested in when the vehicle would be ready for her to pick up.

We had a chit chat and I offered her lift to the nearest place from where she could pick a car to a saloon at Darkuman. I did not utter a word.
I came back to the mechanic and asked him why he had to play on the ignorance of the woman for just the piston grip! His answer was preceded with a laughter!

Ampey, the mechanic narrated how he has also devised ways to fleece women who come to his shop with their vehicles. According to him, many market women would always cheat men on the market and the only subtle way of revenge was when they also send their vehicles for repairs.

According to him, women hardly ask for reduction in the cost of fixing mechanical problems the same way men would normally, out of egoistic tendencies, not ask for reduction in the prices of tomatoes and other food stuff.

While you have resolved to keep reading these ‘useless’ articles, may I suggest to you that next time, send your wife to the market and wives, send your husbands to the mechanic. By so doing, there would be a win-win situation.

Ei, talk of win-win situation reminds me of a lose-lose situation. Can any one of you give me an example of a lose-lose situation? Woaaaa look! I can see you trying to google.

Have you ever heard of anybody buying a fake watch with counterfeit money? Think about it. For me, that could be a lose-lose situation.

Many market women would keep cheating the stingy men who want to do the shopping by themselves and auto mechanics would keep cheating women who want to do their own repair work rounds.

Whether you are a man or not, if you don’t have a partner, please get a member of the opposite gender to do your negotiation for you either at the market centre or at the mechanic shop.

Those of us who use rickety cars are those who have the contacts of every mechanic in town stored on our phones such as Kofi Welder, Kwame auto-electrician, Kojo Sprayer, Kwamena bumper repairer and plenty ‘surnames’.

Please help a woman drive her faulty car to the workshop for proper negotiation.

For men, you too get help from a woman to buy your groceries for you. Don’t be scared of chobo; it is normal!