Why should I pay when it won’t play?

You have been warned! And if you know what’s coming at you, then you are able to prepare yourself for such eventuality.

I know the chief executive of an insurance company in Nigeria. He’s an amiable and very principled person who has worked hard to get to where he is today. But I have a problem. I keep my distance from many CEOs I know, and so do not get to be in touch with them for ages. But that is until something new breaks and I need them to speak to the story. It works better that way. It helps us all to keep our sanity and avoid being in each other’s way when the chips are down! And in this business the chips are very often down, unfortunately.

If you happen to lose touch with someone for very long, anything that has a close connection to that someone is very likely to draw your attention, as if they were the one you hadn’t seen all those times. At least you are sure to have them come into your mind and take a seat for a moment or two – it may not really be like doing a Moment with Mo Abudu in the form of 60 minutes’ chitchat about something and nothing! You suddenly find that you have to do a lot of juggling in your mind at that moment, wondering how to atone for your sins of forgetfulness, or in the real sense, forgetting your friends when you really shouldn’t. If you are sincere to yourself that you had brought this upon yourself, you should lift no finger to point the blame in any other direction. In fact, you should carefully arrange that one finger that is all too happy to point outwards so it can join the other four to point inward to where the blame should sit – YOU!

That was the state in which I found myself recently, when the phone in my office rang and the voice of the receptionist came through to announce that someone from this particular insurance company whose CEO I know wanted to see me. He could have truly come from this company or from anywhere; I wouldn’t have known and I didn’t mind. But the mind has a way of playing tricks on itself – it went straight into overdrive feeling guilty that finally, the CEO had sent someone to drive home the point that I hadn’t been keeping in touch enough! Though my recollection is a little hazy at this point, I’m positive that was exactly what it did.

“Send him in. He must be from the MD of the company.” That was me telling the receptionist, with a level of confidence that the situation did not quite deserve. A few moments with myself later, there was a knock on the door. This tall man was ushered into the office, whereupon he immediately began to introduce himself: “I am Mr XYZ from ZYX Company.”

“Oh, welcome. How is your CEO?” It was me asking now, continuing with my cocksureness about who had sent this man.

He seemed lost for a while, but finding his voice, he struggled to tell me what his mission was. It turned out he hadn’t come from anybody but was on a solo run. Simply put, he was on a cold call, what salesmen do when they just jump on you out of the blues trying to sell you an item they think, and which you may not think, is of some value to you.

He was an insurance salesman, he claimed. But he could have been anybody. He could have had a gun or a cutlass, depending on where he’s from and what they believe can exact maximum pain or injury at his locale. As he struggled to push through his mission, I was consumed with shock and anger. Shocked that proper checks had not been made; angered that he was there trying to sell me insurance that I did not need. And that’s at a time when I was thinking about what the unfolding day’s news would be. It’s really one of those things that make you exclaim: “The story of my life!”

As one saleswoman or man manoeuvres her or his way into your office, trying so hard to sell you something you didn’t tell him you needed, there will be those you see in traffic who will equally be pushing all sorts of things into your car window, thinking you just might give it a look. But I never get to look, I tell you.

And that’s because a cynical man doesn’t quite trust most normal people, much less those carrying some wares with obviously dodgy origins.

And that’s what informed the title of this piece. The title is really not intended to be poetic. By that I simply mean it’s not an attempt at doing the rhyme since there is no rhyme and reason on tap! Those who are familiar with the work of the people behind Word Slam, where the very artistic journalist, Akeem Lasisi, and the dread one, Dagga Tolar, often gather to churn out words that rhyme, will be very sad to read me disclaim an affinity with poetry. If you see it as such, it might just be that you are one of those going about in this world looking for things beyond the surface. There may really be things worth giving such time to, but I tell you indulgees, not everything is worth dissipating so much energy and an awful lot of time on. And should you have noticed a dramatic change in tone in this writing, it means you are all alert to your responsibility and you deserve a few bobs for that.

Just a tip, though: if you run into a traffic salesman or woman trying to sell you an audio CD, you are advised to look the other way. That’s simply because the audio CD is not worth the material with which it is made. I’ve often asked why they have to write audio CD on the sleeves of the albums that they peddle. A CD is a CD, after all. But that’s until you come to understand that all the home video moviemakers have come to believe that they owe nobody an obligation to improve what they dish out to the public. So they carry on recording in what is called VCD, not DVD. And you are asking why?

When you run into a traffic salesman and make a very wrong decision to buy an audio CD or VCD, your woes begin. The audio CD will not play, and that’s when you’ll really find that it is not worth the money you have been quoted. Therein lies the pun: if it won’t play, then you shouldn’t pay. As I told someone recently, upon being approached in traffic by a CD seller, “These CDs are all faked. Don’t pay more than 50 kobo for any, no matter the music that’s on them.”

PHILLIP ISAKPA