Cash Machine: Non-traditional Banking Methods (BARRY BUCCANEER: 2000)

I just remembered one of my favorite TV ads. I think it is for E-Trade. In it, a man is rushed to the ER on a stretcher because he apparently has money coming out of his ‘wazoo’. As they perform all the procedures you frequently see on… well… ER, a surgeon walks in and asks, “Has he got insurance?” At this point they all freeze and another medic retorts, “Insurance? Doctor, this man has money coming out of the wazoo.” Well, duh!

Same thing back home, guys. Back home, local legend has it that some individuals have money coming out of the wazoo. The question is how do I know what wazoo (as used in the above-mentioned TV ad) is? Well, that man who was being treated for money coming out of his wazoo, was lying face-down, so I’ve drawn my own conclusions. Feel free to draw yours. So yes, some people back home have money coming out of the wazoo. It’s called Sikaduro, which translates literally to money medicine. This is how it’s supposed to work:

A guy visits a Mallam (a.k.a. Obeah, a.k.a. voodoo, a.k.a. black magic) and agrees to sacrifice a loved one spiritually – most commonly a son – in exchange for endless wealth. Apparently, for some reason, the Mallams seem to think that the most convenient and efficient way for money to be withdrawn is not from the banks but the wazoo. Given, not all of them have it coming out of the wazoo. Some are given a python, which swallows the loved one and vomits money in return. The perpetrators are believed to hide the pythons under their beds. Sometimes, the sacrifice is yearly, so back in the ‘70’s and 80’s, it was not uncommon to hear of a rich man or woman who lost a child each year.

As boys, we used to walk to school together in groups sharing stories of the “haunted” houses we passed. Yeah, back home, if there is a house in your neighborhood whose occupants you do not know, there has got to be somebody in there with money coming out of his/her wazoo. That’s just the way it is.

Now, how does one know when an individual has money coming out of his/her wazoo? In the traditional markets (like flea markets), the women selling the stuff sit on big boxes in which they put their cash. Some also put their wallets in their bras. In any case, if that person were taking out more money than they were putting in, you had a right to suspect the money was coming out of their wazoo. If someone wore unusually big garments and always dug suspiciously deep into their pockets to take out money, you knew they HAD to have been pulling it out of their wazoo.

A good friend of mine is the son of a very wealthy farmer. His father got so wealthy that he thought he deserved more children than the average man so he married many women and begat countless offspring. So numerous were his progeny that he lost count in his days of senility. As a result, other people’s children came to demand pocket money and he could never tell the difference. This good friend of mine, he believes his father was so wealthy because he had money coming out the wazoo.

Now I know y’all are not superstitious or anything, right? Well, explain this: An individual you know to be a regular user of his/her shank’s pony suddenly acquires a fleet of German cars and builds scores of three-story buildings all around town (multi story buildings are big back home). Of course they could also be trafficking drugs – but drug dealers back home, they got more than just cash coming out of the wazoo. The way I understand it, the drugs are wrapped in condoms which are swallowed whole and upon arrival, the drugballs exit through the wazoo. So, after working the golden triangle (the Bangkok-Accra-New York heroin route), they would return home with money coming out of their wazoo, figuratively. Of course the locals wouldn’t know this, and they would think that individual had money come out of his wazoo, literally.
Mobutu Seseseko was one of the worst dictators the world has ever seen. For his vacations at his estate on the French Riviera, he habitually chartered an Air France Concord to ferry him, his wife and his mistress (who was his wife’s twin sister), and return their shopping in an Air France Cargo plane.

When he needed money, he would tell the finance minister to get him $1 million. The finance minister would then tell the governor of the central bank that the president had asked for $2 million, and the governor in turn would tell the cashier that the president had asked for $3 million. Despite this genocidal pilfering of state funds, the late Mobutu was said to have also had money coming out of the wazoo. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing diapers due to his battle with prostate cancer. However, there’s still no word of any bank notes were spotted in the diapers.

Now Marc Rich, he got money coming out of the wazoo, figuratively speaking. He also got an appropriate name. The billionaire fugitive that Clinton pardoned has spawned great debate and controversy, which has Republicans going after the president’s wazoo. Clinton also initially chose office space for which taxpayers would have had to pull money out of their wazoo. In order to avoid the ‘limelight’, Billy decides to take solace among his people – blacks. Now, blacks have been the worst victims of racial profiling. This is what a comic said: “In the eyes of the police, every black man driving a nice car has got to be a drug dealer. Well, what if he won the lottery?”

Well, I’ll tell you this: What if he’s got money coming out of the wazoo?