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Old
habits die hard. They are like a permanent flu that some guys genetically
inherited and in some cases, the casket serves as the portent anticlimax to the
kooky wont. Clearly, I don’t know the thin line that demarcates that boundary
between addiction and a flaky habit. Yet, when a habit gets out of hand,
especially the covert ones, like a tot, you need guidance until that point in
life when you can walk on your own.
And gambling is one such habit that never
ceases among those who develop it when young because it may regurgitate at any
given point in time when you especially thought you are done with it. Well, at
the end of the day, life itself is a gamble. The decisions we make and the repercussions,
whether good or bad can only be likened to gambling only that we do not need to
necessarily lose money when we engage in whatever action that comes into mind.
Take
smoking for instance, we have been told a thousand and one times that cancer
sticks are just that, cancer sticks. Medical research corroborates the same. In
light of the situation, I think being a cancer stick salesperson could have
been a very lucrative job, but because stringent policies have come to
radically deal a big blow to the sector, the unrivaled sales from the product
have plummeted in contrast to those of mainstream ale makers which fall under
the same category of sin stocks. Had this not been the case, tobacco farming
would have been booming and sin stock investing in the same product spiraling
to unprecedented levels because cigarettes have an inelastic demand and are
recession-proof. That’s economics one’o’one.
Men,
I hate the evocative scent that permeates after smoking cheap to mid-range
cigarettes. The smell sticks like strong
incense and it takes days for it to completely fade away which in an anathema.
I wonder how partners married to smokers feel given that they must tolerate the
stench that emanates from both the clothes and breathe. Yet they must cope with
the noxious smell if the partner is an addict and cannot do without a midrange
scented cancer stick in a day.
That
said, my bedding are still laced with the redolent smell when a smoker who
spent the night playing PS3 lay on it for about two hours after getting spent
during the day after voting as he could no longer stay astir. The worst thing
is that the scent became part and parcel of my blankets. It’s more than a week
ever since the bugger slept on my bed and the struggle that I have gone through
to sleep on it is not worthy a description. It’s bad, it’s synonymous to sleeping
with a tramp or wearing a damp cloth and you have no option.
Yet the culprit
looked unfrazzled as if he was subtly inhaling flower-scented deodorant or he
was perhaps suffering from parosmia. And
every day, I thought the inimical smoke odor would die a natural death. Sadly,
it kept on decreasing at an increasing rate. That is the reason why I have hanged
my blankets outside after the smell escalated, to fix the problem given that
they needed the proverbial airing. I hope this will be a lasting solution
because the smell was so deep into the fabric I felt like it was chocking.
American
roulette. This reminds me of the first time I went to a posh casino to hawk
bank products. Never mind that the policy of the institution was strict against
gambling and any form of association.
I
have been playing American Roulette but at an academic level. That is, Roulette
mathematics and the results were awesome until I was expected to find an odd number
standard deviation. It was so mind boggling I spent two days researching on what
I already knew. When I got it, I felt like running nude in the estate
screaming, “Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!” like the legendary Greek mathematician and
Physicist Archimedes. Then I realized there was no discovery I had made and I
coiled like a millipede that has sensed danger ahead.
An
American Roulette has 38 divisions; 18 of the numbers are red, 18 are black and
two are green. As a player, the main objective, which any player pursuits, is
to predict, which numbered pocket the roulette ball is going to settle into. A
‘sure bet’ in roulette is tantamount to picking one of the main colors, either
black or red. You either win or lose an equal amount of money when you have placed
such a bet. And the expected value irrespective of the type of the bet you
place is a constant -0.0526 for every dollar. The expected value is the
weighted average of how much you can win or lose.
Consequently, I
inadvertently bumped into a research that was carried out in the US on the
correlation between gambling and smoking and there is no evidence to authenticate the
fact that most gamblers are smokers. The scenario depicts an almost equal
number in comparison to the general population with a slighter margin on
gamblers who smoke. The casino I went to did not have so many smokers. In fact,
the Indian guy we sat next to who had gone to gamble was taking tea. And it
goes without doubt that majority of gamblers in in Kenya are Indians (me
opine). Why? You need money and to be living beyond the mere tenets of being
able to pay bills. You also need to have a fall back plan which is to come from
a well-to-do family or having a reliable cash cow that you can milk to
sustain the addictive behaviour that is gambling.
Is
there a correlation between gambling and smoking? I strongly believe there is.
While the research I was relying on for analysis was carried out ages ago,
probably more than a decade, the reality is that so much has changed post that period.
I cannot fail to factor in the fact that awareness levels among the public has
increased. More people have gone to school and the media has played a vital
role in spreading the message far and wide.
****
A
former primary school pal who I met while training to be a clerk is now a weed addict
and he smokes sticks with abandon. Apparently, we were also in the same campus but doing different courses
having different tastes and preferences and during different time periods. He
intimated how a couple of times he forfeited using public transport just to use
the bucks to sustain his thirst to get stoned. I wish I saw him walking, making
his way into Kibera to finally be in Langata were he resides. I told him he was
hooked on substance but like the perennial addict he denied the allegation though seceding when I pressed further.
What he confessed was he will never move to the ghetto because, “Unawezaenda
hio mtaa ukute uko na mamorio wenye wanakugeuka ukitoka nao rave juu wanasaka
na hivyo ndio wanakuruka vitu zikienda mbaya.”
Then
we started reminiscing the good old days. The times we were considered bookworms
and chops, now we were both together hustling as clerks. What an embarrassment it
would be having worked hard in both primary and secondary school only to find
yourself jobless looking for whatever they might throw to you to make money.
Damn, it can never be that serious, right? He is yet to finish school and
reminds me of an uncle who dropped out of campus to be a watchman because as he
intimated, he did the course he did to please his peeps. He never did what he
liked and that was the reason why he never felt like completing what he
started.
So,
at the end of the day life is like a roulette, you spin the wheel hoping that
things will go in a certain way only for them to give you the complement of
what you had staked on in terms of probability. Even clairvoyants and psychics
predict the natural course of life and fail miserably. That is well depicted when
the Financial Times noted that, “The clairvoyant society of London will not
meet Tuesday because of unforeseen circumstances.”
Hasta
La Vista Baby.
[Picture
Source: Google Images].
