Here’s some free advice to my My Murang’a folks:don’t dare borrow those matchbox-sized cars to wow your village mates this Christmas. Our ruthless hills will break up those small thingies, such that it will end in blood, sweat, and jeers.

Last year, my cousin borrowed such a car to show the village that she is now a single, upwardly mobile independent woman. So together with her 1GB girlfriends, they hit the road to Murang’a, big sunglasses hinged on their shiny foreheads. Plus boxes of pizza on the laps.

The car served them well up to Kenol town. But when they started climbing hills at Mukangu, its 120cc engine overheated. Someone suggested they buy it a lollipop, but that didn’t stop its radiator cap from coming off since it’s held together with safety pins.

At that steep climb towards Kahuhia Girls, the windscreen which is fastened by staples came of. Two Brazil wigs flew through the window, leaving two ‘miss independents’ looking like muchunu hens.

Past Koimbi market, the chrome tyres screeched as they climbed another gargantuan hill. One of them came off since they are fastened by chewing gum. Luckily some nduthi guys in shining armour and smelly overcoats came to the rescue of the damsels in distress.

When the girlfriends later arrived home sans wigs sans happiness, they car saw another hill brooding like a giant ahead.It’s road was slippery than a tongue.On the car’s dashboard, a red light started blinking: ‘no road ahead’.

Various efforts by Maina Makanika to coax it to move didn’t help. So the girlfriends had to heave the shopping they did at Magunas onto their heads. Which didn’t help much since the same heads contained more Guaranas than grey matter. When Maina noted that the car ran on AAA batteries like a remote, he gave up on it.

When my auntie saw the car or what had remained of it, she smothered it with a mbocori to ward of the evening chill lest it caught pneumonia. My uncle, on the other hand, wasn’t very kind to the diminutive contraption:

‘Gaka kang’othi gationgithirio kuigana’,he quipped. This minuscule car was not suckled enough.

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