Holding Some One To Ransom

The helper in the kitchen at my weekly meeting site, used to heat water for me. I’d come in from work, just want a cup of coffee. I brought my own coffee. All I need was that cup of hot water.

One day she told me, with a perfectly straight face, that she was told not to waste the electricity  so could not heat the water.

I knew she was lying. She might have realised that I knew she was lying. But I did not argue. I took a plastic cup and mixed my coffee with cold water.

As many powerless people she looks to ‘hold me to ransom’. She has nothing for me, she can only beg me. By heating the water she had a toe in. She was doing me a favour. Now, she has no connection to me. She can’t ask me for a smile.

She must have realised her error.  The next week as I arrived she showed willingness to heat water, but I told her not to bother.

This may sound like trivia. Silly. Why even mention it?

The holding to ransom is a standard in Jamaica.

Bosses will make their workers wait until past quitting time to pay them. A person who needs immediate assistance at a hospital will have to wait until the dispenser stops looking over her old phone messages, or sorting rubber bands.

To hold someone ‘to ransom’ is to demean them.  This gives pleasure to the person doing the holding.  It is a horrible trait found in many Yardies.

A person may have no more power than to unlock a door, or park a car; or heat water, but if they can, they will try to abuse others with this ‘power’.

So, opt out.

The helper can no longer deny me water. I don’t talk to her. She can’t beg me a birthday gift. She can’t engage me in conversation.

I now arrive at the meeting with a smoothie I’ve purchased down the road.  I sit and drink my smoothie, often far away from her.  She can’t say a word.  She can’t tell me that she was told I was not to drink a smoothie over here or there.

Whatever power she had, or thought she had, is gone.

People can only hold you to ransom when they have something you want.  If you don’t want it, they have no power.  When people have no power over you they are left empty.