My Bad Habit Made Me a Genuine Suspect.

Being accused wrongly is one of the things I have experienced quite a few times in life. It has taught me not to tackle issues just based on assumption and it is one of the reasons why you can't find me pointing fingers at someone without any evidence.

I always caution my siblings whenever we are chatting and they accuse someone (probably a friend or our neighbours) of something. Even my fiancee knows that I don't enjoy discussion that has to do with accusing someone without concrete evidence and even with evidence, I have many times chosen to mind my business. The impact of abusing people wrongly doesn't end with physical effects and there are times the experience plays hard on their mental health.

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The majority of my experience has to do with snatching people's girlfriends and even my best friend at a time accused me. He introduced her to me and gave her my number to help her with a particular stuff then. After the stuff was settled, we still spoke a few times and one day he came up with the accusation and vowed never to introduce his girlfriend to me again and every time it happened, I always focus more on the lesson involved.

A particular accusation left a negative impact on me in the neighbourhood, it happened when I was a teenager and we didn't discover the truth for days. When the truth eventually revealed itself, it was difficult for me to relate easily with people in the neighbourhood but with time, the feeling wore off.

I love throwing objects as a kid and stones weren't always far from my hands. I remembered breaking a boy's head with a stone after he threw a stone at me, I was punished badly that day and that experience was supposed to be enough for me to stop the act but I was so obsessed with it. My mom scolds me always for throwing stones at animals or anything and the whole neighbourhood knew that thing was my bad habit.

There was a particular day a goat entered our compound and while trying to chase it out, I found a stone and tried hitting the goat but guess what? I broke a plastic water drum instead. Seeing water gush out of the drum made my heart pause for a moment because the water drum wasn't ours and my mom would kill me if she hears about it.

I sat with the drum thinking of a possible solution but couldn't come up with anything so I went to report myself. The situation got messy and that day, I started seeing the need to stop that bad habit.

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Fast forward to some time later when I was gradually doing away with the habit, our landlady had a clay water drum she used for collecting rainwater. It was permanently stationed behind her window so water poured directly from the roof into the clay drum whenever it is raining and during the dry season, she fills it with water by herself.

One evening, she found the pot was broken. The first she did was to come and knock on our door, it would have been a different case if she asked if I was the one who did it and instead of that, she went on shouting that I broke the pot.

My mom was so pissed and almost got into a physical fight with the woman, and before I knew it, the other tenants started saying all sorts of things. They all agreed that I was the one who broke it because I broke a water drum some time ago.

They even said it to the extent that I was cursed with stone and I felt very sad that day. Every explanation I made failed to make them understand that I didn't do it failed.

I told my mom and she believed me because she knew that no matter what the consequences would be, I wouldn't lie to her. After the incident, the woman always insult me whenever I walked past or greet her. Some tenants joined her and they even started holding grudges with my mom as well.

It wasn't their fault and I blame myself for the stone throwing obsession that made everyone point the guilt finger at me.

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Honestly, I would have thought of the same thing as well. I was the assumed culprit just because of my stone-throwing habit but the truth was revealed days later.

The person who did it eventually confided in someone while they were gossiping, she revealed that one pastor told her that our landlady was using the clay pot for fetish things and she was told to break it. I didn't know how the conversation travelled around and my mom's friend on the street told my mom about it.

Without hesitation, my mom confronted the woman and what was hidden became public. I felt bad, the landlady felt too big to apologize which wasn't an issue to me but the incident affected the relationship I had with our co-tenants.

The incident helped me do away with throwing things and I didn't get into trouble about throwing things again. Accusing people wrongly is something I detest so much and I will rather stay mute than say what I didn't witness.