If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

There is this saying: ‘If it ain’t broken, then don’t fix it.’ It is a saying that the marketing or is it the advertising people at BAT have neglected especially with the ‘new look’ Sportsman packet. To be honest, it is the most hideous cigarette packet on the market. What was wrong with the design of the old pack? It was simple –white and red with a head of a horse as a logo though years earlier, somebody decided that the man who used to sit on the horse ought to go. As a brand, Sportsman was IT, but the new look hideous packet which incidentally I won’t be caught dead with, means that heads at BAT have to roll or I will quit smoking. That said, does anybody want my collection of lighters?

Anyway, he walked into Miki’s Pub and didn’t take a keen interest in the pool game that was raging at one of the tables. Rather, he perched himself up at the bar and watched whatever it was that DStv was showing, ordered for a Coke and a packet of cigarettes and was given the hideous new look Sportsman pack.

I am into pool but I am not fanatical about it because it is just a game.
Getting back, as the pool game wore on, it made sense to have a game as I wait for lunch to be served. However just as I was about to lay my sh500 coin on the table, the chap who had shown no interest in the game and who was content with his Coke, DStv and Sportsman cigarettes slapped down three sh500 coins. I gave him a quizzical look and let him be.

Returning to his seat, he was later joined by two ladies – one carrying a small valise that obviously nestled a pool cue. The lady with the valise and The Chap had something in common. They were wearing matching purple track suits. I would have thought it odd, but then again, the landlord of Miki’s Pub has this habit of turning up on a hot Sunday afternoon with his wife and daughter in tow and the trio are dressed to the nines in heavy winter jackets and ski boots. So this couple dressed in matching purple tracksuits didn’t make me gasp out in horror.

The Chap, when it was his turn on the table, turned out to be a ‘talker’. A talker as in one of those people who wants everybody watching to know how he is going to knock the yellow ball off the side cushion and have it double back to end up in the corner pocket. If not, in between shots as he puffed on his cigarette, he would talk of his exploits on the Nankulabye pool tables and how he was the best there is in that area.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it was the shenanigans of his lady friend in the purple track suit who I presumed to be his wife. With every ball that The Chap potted, she would leap up, rush to the table and slap her hand on it. And when this happened, the response from The Chap and in Luganda went along these lines.

The Chap: “Mulaba, (you see) I was telling them that me, Ssekitoke, I am the best pool player in Nankulabye. They even call me professor because I studied the game and I am here to show these people what professor can do.”

Woman in Purple Tracksuit: “Wama, Ssekitoke, show them what you are made of.”

I seem to be running away with this article that I need to slow it down a trifle. With a name like Ssekitoke, he was bound to be a pool hustler and the type to have a wife wearing a purple tracksuit with...wait for it, wait for it, wait for it – HIGH HEELS! There is a need to upper case ‘high heels’ so that you get the same feel of anguish and disgust that I had for her.

By the way, The Chap was very good at his game. He cleaned, he massacred, he wiped and slaughtered just about everybody he took on. And he did it with a vile and sarcastic glee about him.

Then it was my turn. As I racked the balls he looked me up and down and sneered. In Luganda, he was saying: “Now who is this person you have brought me? Is this the best you have? He won’t last long because I am going to show him what Ssekitoke is made of.”

Inside me, I was on his side. I knew what was coming to me that rather than think about the game, I thought of my exit. That as soon as he’s beaten me, I will flush my food and be on my way home to hide out the rest of the day in shame.

I broke. As the clatter of the noise from the balls knocking each other began to subside, there was that unmistakable sound. The unmistakable sound of a ball dropping into a pocket and rolling down to the collection tray below the table. I had potted a yellow. The next yellow spun off the black into the side pocket and the next was a mere tap into the upper left corner pocket. Then I missed.

Back on the table, The Chap wasted no time. Four balls were potted in a quick succession. Then he attempted a double and missed. My turn and I felt strange. I pulled off seemingly impossible shots by luck and when that happened, I thought it best that I swagger round the table with an air of self confidence to convince The Chap that it was a shot that I had planned.

Suddenly there were six balls left on the table. The white, the black, my solitary yellow ball and three of his red balls with my yellow, hanging over the pocket. All it took was a simple kiss from the white ball and the game was over.

The Chap could not believe it. He went into a rant shouting out that, he could not be beaten and a rematch was required.

Wait a minute. This is pool and not boxing. In pool, the winner stays on the table, there is no ‘rematch’ and The Chap knew this but because he was the ‘the professor of pool from Nankulabye’ and had been beaten, he had to take me on again.

Luckily for him, the person who was on the table next, relented and let The Chap play again. The Chap spewed out more threats and insults and encouraged by his woman in the purple tracksuit and HIGH HEELS, he threw down 10k as a wager.

“Look here chap” I told him. “This is just a game. There is no need to get angry or take other peoples games. And no, I am not going to bet with you!”

So The Chap taunted me to an extent that I lost my cool and took on the bet. It was a tight game and with all due honesty, The Chap should have won but I got some lucky breaks here and there and prevailed to win.

And as gamblers say: ‘Quit while you are ahead.’ I did just that, snatched the 10k out of The Chaps hand and took my throbbing ego to a stool at the bar.

As the bar lady was about to pop open the Mirinda Fruity I had earlier ordered to have with my lunch, I stopped her. Seeing I was 10k richer, I told her in my bad Luganda: “Mpa ka Tusker Malt. Ate, oyo guy ku pool table muwe soda” (give me a Tusker Malt and the chap at the pool table, give him a soda).

I don’t think it was something that I should have done - sending him a Coke that is. The Chap went livid, ranted some more, packed his pool cue along with the hideous new look Sportsman pack and left with his entourage.

Four days later, I thought I would have a game. Placing my sh500 coin on the table, there were “be very afraid” whispers of how good I was. When it was my turn, I broke and didn’t pot a ball from the break and that was it. The game was over. The Rasta I was playing, 7-balled me!