Dear BMW,
My wife of three years is a WhatsApp addict. She is so addicted to social media to the extent that she WhatsApps while cooking, eating, cleaning the house, bathing the kids, and worst of all while in bed.
Every ping sends her to a jilt! So you can imagine when we are at it and she hears her mobile phone beeping. Biggy, sometimes this woman cares little that I am almost done. She throws me off and jumps out of the bed like a cat. She leaves me hanging, literary.
When I insist that she abandons her habit, she refuses and resorts to holding her phone while we at it and says:‘Mukatha mundiuza”.
Biggy, WhatsApp has robbed me a friend, partner, wife and lover. Should I call Ankhoswe?
KOV via Word of Mouth
Dear KOV,
Many a story has been told about the evils of WhatsApp, and social media in general. Some people claim they have lost their jobs because of careless statements made on social media. Students have blamed WhatsApp for their failure in exams. Ex-couples have faulted WhatsApp and other social media apps for wrecking their blissful marriages. Governments have allegedly been toppled due to the spellbinding power of WhatsApp. Preachers have damned WhatsApp for leading their faithful flock astray.
But let us be realistic. People still lost their jobs before WhatsApp. Steve Jobs lost a job in his own company long before all this social media madness rolled into town.
Millions of blissful marriages hit the buffers before WhatsApp was even conceived. There was no WhatsApp when Michael Jackson married and divorced, Lisa Marie Presley, was there? Lazy students still flunked their exams. The Stupid Federation crumbled before Brian Acton and Jan Koum, founders of WhatsApp, were even born. Hell, several souls were still lost to the sinful one. The snake did not charm Eve with a WhatsApp message, did it?
That said, of all those myriad absurd accusations people throw at WhatsApp, yours must rank the most mind-boggling. I take it that you are exaggerating when you say she gets excited with WhatsApp even when she’s cooking, eating, cleaning the house and bathing the kids.
But let’s imagine all this is true; dude, you have a huge problem on your hands. And you, KOV, are that problem. The big problem is that you don’t realise you are the problem.
That your wife multi-tasks by Whatsapping while she is cooking, eating, cleaning the house, bathing the children should be commended. But that she does the same while you are giving it to her thick and juicy can only point at one thing; you don’t light her fires anymore or you are not good enough, or both. No man worth his pound in gold would stand for such nonsense.
A good teacher never lets the mind of a pupil wander off to matters outside the classroom. That means either the lesson is boring or the teacher is not good enough, or both, just like you.
If you were half the man, the only sound she would be hearing while you are at it would be the sound of a heavenly choir singing in her ears, not the tone of WhatsApp messages.
Ndanena ndanenso!
Big Man Wamkulu
