If you are not the pretentious type that loathe to be associated with rusticity after acquiring a synthetic urbanity, you will agree that in many village homesteads of yesteryears there existed an array of unwritten rules pertaining some things that kids were not to be found by parents messing around with.
By Ndung'u Wa Gathua
The consequences of breaking any of those rules would be met with fire and fury and kids nabbed breaking any of them, did not know any better how to react other than to begin crying endlessly and begging for forgiveness even before the parent could figure out what all the begging and crying was all about.
I doubt whether today's kids can relate with any of them a single inch especially a time like now that they have been thrown into a prolonged home vacation as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.
Whatever the case might be, here are some of those unwritten rules that were common during those times that some of us remembers with nostalgia. However, they may differ depending on how, where and the set-up one was brought in.
1. Dad's Drinking Vessel
Regardless of the vessel your dad was fond of using while taking his preferred beverage, you may agree that this particular vessel be it a mug, cup, glass or cow horn which was earmarked for the head of the family was not something you went around 'licking' and 'sucking' with your unkempt salivary mouth.
Even if it was the only clean drinking utensil in the whole house, you wouldn't even feel safe using it to gulp some cold water before quickly returning it to where you picked it from.
2. Utensils Preserved for Visitors
In every typical rural homestead, you would always find some utensils that range from cups, plates, spoons to what have you, that were strictly reserved for some imaginary guests that only God knew when they would come visiting.
As such, kids would be left to use some decades-old utensils to the last bit as the so-called visitors' utensils gathered dust inside the cupboard.
3. Dairy Vessels
Milk being a perishable beverage with a short shelf life, it definitely requires some delicate handling right from the source to where it is preserved. Hygiene is an essential requirement for that matter.
And with the typical rural kids' hands always being soiled and soaked in all manner of dirt, they were without excuse required to keep off these vessels or would risk being made to 'mow' like the animal that provides this essential farm product.
Indeed old age will crack our bones those who we can relate with this stuff. Won't it?