Stranger Than Fiction
"There's a call for you" she said, " I didn't quite get his name - I think he said he's somebody's husband".
"Put him on", I said.
I knew who it was. It wasn't the first time his name had been misheard on that phone - or many others. I didn't expect his call - as he was in another continent.
"How can I help you", I asked - cutting to the chase. I knew it wasn't a social call.
"I have a problem" he said. "I've left the sporrans at home."
Its not every day that a man with a broad accent calls you from another continent and asks you to go to his house to find two sporrans. I can't imagine that I'll ever again have to call an international courier company and get a quote for the transit of a pair of scottish purses to africa. The woman on the other and of the phone was more nonchalant than me and was able to estimate that a sporran weighed about a kilo - her partners' did. The chance of speaking to another person who knew someone with a sporran - let alone how much it weighed seemed wrong to me - but I pressed on.
My friend in africa seemed relatively unmoved when I revealed that it would cost him £80 to send him the cultural adornments he so desperately needed to perform his "best-manly" duties at his friends wedding. My partner and I speculated on whether or not there was a branch of "Sporrans "R" Us" or ""Sproz-U-Like" in Nairobi. I even stuck Nairobi and Sporran in Google to little avail.
I set off in the rain with my cat-feeding set of keys and at the door bumped into other cat-feeders. We discussed the sporran situation and wondered if a local could be paid less than £80 to slaughter a cow and make it into several sporrans and a pair of leather chaps for less than £80. I found the articles and left with them in my spar carrier bag to continue my adventure.