Long long ago, in a land far away. The Acolyte and his college cronies (or should I say henchmen?) used to enjoy this "wonderful" drink.
This firewater was a blessing in many ways to broke college students such as ourselves. Where as a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka the same size would only be good for 3 people like Jesus bread this bottle would cater to twice that number and cost 3 times less! Add to the fact that on a cold night it would slide down your throat like lava down a South American hill, live a virgin's leg your throat would at first be tight and want to close but on realizing the impending pleasure it would open gradually but surely.
Now to the disadvantages of this tempestuous love affair we had, you see first of all with the cane products the high was unpredictable. I once recall a friend of mine moving from discussing current affairs while enjoying a buzz to changing into a gibbering mess rambling about devil worshippers and the 20 shilling note. I am sure that many seasoned drinkers are also aware that cheap liqour more often than note reverses the laws of gravity, in that what goes down must go up! So what would happen is that after drinking 1/4 or more of a 750 ml it was inevitable that once in a while the cane would clash with whatever was in your stomach and proceed to empty the premises, so there would be only one exit; the mouth (at least in most cases). But there would be one problem, as the contents of the stomach would move up they would reach somewhere around the solar plexus area and decide, "No! We are not leaving!"
and turn back. As a result I once recall being held up as we waited for almost 10 minutes as a pal heaved noxious cane fumes, when he finally managed to regurgitate a baby's hand worth of puke; he was hoisted on the mob's shoulders as if he had won the Nairobi Marathon.
There were also the hangovers that made you feel like a truck had ran over and in your head, your tongue was made of sand paper and every noise felt like nails on a chalk board but there was one thing that made me divorce the drink once and for all.........
The memory loss!!!!!! Yes that was the worst part, Safari Cane taught me how to empathize with people who were kidnapped by UFOs. I too now know how it feels to wake up in your bed, aching and bruising with no idea how you got there in addition to having lost a chunk of time. The incident that made me go cold turkey was an interesting one.
You see one weekend my Uncle was home for Summer (yes the infamous Summer Bunnies of way back when) so we were with some pals and he decided to treat us, and the idiots that we were with my pals instead of asking for the expensive good stuff we decided to opt for our usual poison. So we drank a total of two bottles in between 6 people and off to Electric Avenue aka Westlands. I recall functioning perfectly for the first half of the night and I even recall at one point in the night a pal came and told me how a pal of his had thrown up on his shirt so in my Safari influenced stupor I literally gave him the shirt off my back, so the Acolyte was left wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket with nothing on the inside but when you have Safari in you, you don't feel the cold.
My last memory was later leaving the bar and finding two dudes I knew squaring off to fight, I recall walking in between both parties and beseeching them not to fight. My next memory was getting up in bed just fine with no bruises whatsoever but with the usual killer hangover.
I knew something was amiss when I was talking to my Uncle the next day and he was like, " I see someone has been playing Streetfighter," and walked away laughing. I didn't even know what he was talking about and dismissed him. Later on in the day I was walking in the neighbourhood and this dude whom I didn't talk to much comes up to me and says, " Jamaa you are harsh, I saw how you wekad those 2 dudes!" I was still in denial and shrugged off his misplaced admiration, but like the Biblical Peter the cock crowed when my small sis came home and told me, " I met a pal of mine who said you know how to kick ass!"
After that day as my pal's happily destroyed their livers and their brains, I opted for Beer or soda.
Lesson of The Day? - Cheap liquor destroys short term memory and.....damn I forgot!
