Early this week, I had the bitter sweet experience of going shopping for the now famous ’21 items’ that are required by Kwezi’s school as necessities to make her new education journey fun and productive. Before you get very confused about why I said the experience was bitter sweet, let me explain. While I am looking forward to my girl going to school and beginning the journey that I hope will see her conquer the world so to speak, you, on the other hand, know how crazy January is when it comes to money matters. Every time the cashier added an item and its cost, my heart beat a little bit faster. Thankfully, in the end, we managed.

Coincidentally, I happened to be doing the shopping in the company of Kwezi; the girl of the moment. As we went from aisle to aisle searching for items, I was entertained when she had an opinion about some things but also surprised when she made statements like "It’s boring”. Boring? Little girl, first, who taught you that word? Secondly, do you really know what it means? I wondered. Anyway, when we got to the side where there were many shoes all in different sizes, types and colours, I waited to see if she had an opinion. Of course she had one because if she didn’t, then I would definitely doubt if she is mine. She picked out the pink canvas shoes. It was a good choice actually and I helped her try it on. It fit perfectly and we decided that we were settling for that. Now, just like every female, Kwezi was so in love with her shoes that it became another story when I decided to get them off her feet. To her, and I can only imagine, the shoes were already hers. I was going to pay for them, so why did I feel the need to put them in the shopping cart? The cheeks grew bigger and the tears started falling rapidly but as much as I didn’t want my little girl to get upset, I was not ready to be accused of using a toddler to shoplift. Eventually, I managed to convince her and we ended up at the counter where item by item, we paid.

The woman at the counter couldn’t help but ask me if the items were for a primary school child. I said no. Then she asked me if my nursery school student was going to boarding school, still the answer was no. She shook her head and gave us a free packet of chewing gum which she said was a bonus for our big purchases. I think she felt that I needed the gum because when I glanced at the bill again, my teeth were gnashing in pain. But like always, we shall overcome.