I have often gotten into trouble for asking the question ‘why’. Mostly, because I forget that I live in a society where rules are meant to be obeyed, not understood. I saw the latest example of this last weekend, when my husband went to watch a football match at a local bar-cum-restaurant. The conversation went something like this:
Waiter: What will you have?
Hubby: A soda please.
Waiter: Sorry, when the match is on, you can only order two sodas, not one.
Hubby: But I only want one soda.
Waiter: You must order two.
Hubby: What if I can only drink one?
Waiter: Then you must buy two.
Hubby: Why?
Waiter: Because that is the rule.
Eventually hubby left, not keen on buying two sodas for one stomach. What I wondered, myself, was why the bar owner was working so hard to be clever. Why not just put up a sign outside, proclaiming that one must pay Shs XXX to watch a match? Why all this two-sodas subterfuge?
Which reminds me of another rule I have never understood. When my sister was in high school, there was a sign prohibiting students from stepping on the grass before 6p.m. After 6p.m., they were free to trample on the self-same grass like a marauding horde of elephants. What kind of grass is this, I wonder? Does it renew itself nightly, miraculously producing itself anew with the morning dew?
But forget the magical grass for a minute. Have you ever used a pay-to-use toilet? Well, you deposit your coin with the toilet receptionist and then they hand you a meanly – cut two squares of tissue paper. It does not matter your particular need for that moment- everyone gets the same two squares of toilet paper.
It doesn’t seem important — until the day your stomach decides to go berserk in the middle of town and you approach the toilet receptionist, face screwed up, knees locked together and tiny trickles of sweat making their way down your face — only to get the standard-issue two squares of toilet paper… after all, that is the rule.
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