Shiro throws temper tantrum in public

Shiro was around last week to attend the children’s end of year events. Maingi, our firstborn is finally done with kindergarten and now will be starting primary school next year.

This follows a lot of back and forth arguments with Shiro who wanted Maingi to attend one of these Western schools. She kept on saying that these schools will help make him become a “well-rounded individual”.

No matter how hard she tried, I did not see why we should cough up so much money in the name of “well-rounded”.

After attending Maingi’s Christmas party, Shiro suggested that we go for “a drink to catch up”.

The first hour of our drink up was spent discussing Maingi’s performance. Shiro seemed to have an issue with the fact that teachers had said he is a “bit slow in learning and needs to work better with classmates”. I told her, “there is nothing to worry about, the boy is only six years of age”.

She responded by saying, “babe, I never understand why you never take these things seriously. These are the same comments that the teacher has been making throughout kindergarten — we need to do something”. I sometimes get super exasperated by Shiro when she goes off on this tangent about school performance.

To cut her off, I said, “maybe we can look at seeing an education specialist who can give us some level-headed opinion, but whatever happens we are not sending him to that expensive school”.

Shiro let out a nervous giggle and said, “I have actually abandoned those plans, in fact I wanted to talk to you about my plans”.

The long and short about it is that Shiro is considering quitting her job and coming home to do business. Shiro has never once expressed interest in becoming an entrepreneur so this news caught me by surprise and I had asked her, “what has led to this decision?”

She went on to give me her explanation — basically her company is laying off people and offering voluntary early retirement for some of them. According to Shiro, she should take the “money and set up a consultancy”.

I had to put a stop to this madness and told Shiro, “what kind of consultancy? In this economy!” She said, “a lot of SMEs cannot afford expensive marketing and branding services, so I will bridge the gap for them”. I asked her, “have you been reading about the state of the economy? Businesses are closing. You will struggle for sure. This is the wrong time.” Shiro’s reaction was a shock to me as she said, “what is wrong with you? You never support my dreams?” I was taken aback by this and I said, “what are you talking about?” Shiro proceeded to list a litany of my crimes, which included everything from not supporting her “desire to have a church wedding, moving to a different neighbourhood and even her move to Dubai”.

At a certain point she even started crying and I told her, “you need to calm down. We should not be fighting in public”. This seemed to annoy her even more as she said, “I don’t care! I am leaving!”

I did not want to leave the pub at this point and so I told her, “I am not ready to leave.” To show me that she was really mad, “she said, I will leave you here to enjoy yourself since you clearly do not care about my feelings.” She then hailed an Uber and stomped out of the pub. I could see some people staring at me, but I gave them no regard and focused on getting drunk.

I do not recall how long it had been, but I do recall Karimi walking into the pub looking very hot. She made a beeline for my table and said, “Josphat, I have so missed you.”

After all everything else was a blur until when I heard Shiro’s voice waking me up the next day saying, “can you wake up and take your children for a birthday party!”. My head was pounding as I looked at my watch — It was 2pm.