Multi-Tasking The Pompi Way

I’m not a gadget person especially when it comes to phones. I don’t buy a phone for what it can do. I buy phones for what they look like. And I like big phones because I believe that men should have a phallic symbol in the form of a big phone because it sells status.

My current phone is a Samsung. While it has a big enough face, I am still not happy with it. Half an inch wider and longer would have suited me fine, but for the time being, it will do.

When it comes to sending out texts, chatting on WhatsApp or Twitter, there is nothing spectacular about my style. I am rather cumbersome and I use my left index finger to do the needful. On the other hand, I have seen people who are seemingly wizards at sending texts like Pompi (Below left) and Guma, (Below right) who I deem to be the masters in the circles that I trawl.

I don’t know how Pompi does it, but he can multitask. He has the ability to order a Bell beer from Adyeri while at the same time with two phones in front him, hold multiple txt conversations and all while still contributing to the conversation that’s going on around him.    

Guma on the other hand, types away with both hands at a terrifying speed like he is a pre-independence day era civil servant secretary on an old Olivetti ribbon type writer, while still being able to traverse his ride through traffic with relative ease.

But its Pompi who I have always wanted to be like when I eventually master the art of phone multitasking. Watching him at work is a marvel. The way he sits there, legs akimbo and holding court – not just with us who are sitting with him, but with possibly ten or more people he has hanging off his every word at the end of the phones he carries. And when the ‘corner has been secured’ as he is fond of saying, he stands up and shouts: “Mukhwaasi, bring chicken!”

Until it all went wrong. One evening as he did his multitasking, he let out a shriek, stood up and followed the shriek with all the ‘sh**s’ that he could muster then set about dismantling the phone – removing the cover, battery and sim card. When all was done, he sat back in sheer anguish, blew out a ‘phew’ while he filled us in. He had sent a critical text to the wrong person. But all was not lost because he had dismantled the phone, removed the sim card so surely, the message cannot have been sent?

Five minutes later and after reassembling the phone and switching it on, there a ‘ping’ sound with an envelope flying across the screen to indicate the message has been sent. All he could do was sit and wait for ‘sh*t to hit the fan.

Two weeks ago, I pulled that stunt. I was on a roll. I was tweeting. I was also having two conversations with two different WhatsApp forums, as well as a one-on-one conversation when hell broke loose. The message, which was enough to make me blush and intended for One-On-One, went to Contenass – a group of the most hard-core and unforgiving 35 men that I know of when it comes to shelling.

I didn’t bother dismantling the Samsung like Pompi did, but just sat back and resigned myself to an afternoon of the most humiliating shells. And Rwom didn’t waste time in unleashing. What did he say – “what is the old fossil up to?”

But something was distracting the group in that I got off lightly. Yes, I got a few canes here and there but nothing brutal to make me want to exit the group like our flamboyant Mukiga aka Kwagalana Mr. P… does, when he’s being shelled.

Since then, I have given up on multitasking. If it’s a forum conversation, I stick to one forum conversation till it’s done. And if it’s to One-On-One, I make sure I am typing the message on the right page.

Pictures: Patrick Oyulu, New Vision, Internet