Agony aunting for a spon

Thulaganyo Jankey | Wednesday September 10, 2025 14:14

You could be writing a column on football and some distressed reader would ask you about how to rear fantail pigeons with. You could be an agony aunt and you would get letters from readers wanting to know your opinion regarding the strife in Gaza. Columnists in the eyes of the reader are the Swiss Army knives of unsolicited wisdom. One week we’re solving sibling rivalries, the next we’re diagnosing your rash. My qualification though is merely a questionable flair for metaphors and the ability to type while sipping possibly expired fruit juice. One morning, I opened an email titled: “URGENT: I have paid tertiary tuition fees for my girlfriend and now she’s about to complete her course and she looks like she wants to dump me. I have had to take a loan from a loan shark and now the deputy sheriffs are constant visitors.

I have never even gone to tertiary myself and was trying to uplift my woman. What should I do?” The sender, “Pained in Palapye,” explained that he needed advice real quick before the Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital comes calling.

So I had to untangle this whole mess using only my deep sense of analysis. The department that is charged with paying tertiary tuition is called Department Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF).

So, now we have a whole gentleman playing DTEF for his lady. How admirable is that! Obviously not when the lady now starts changing colours like a chameleon! Like a cat rescued from a tree only to climb a taller one out of spite the lady had decided – albeit toungue-in-cheek- that she will not be continuing with her man who had morphed into her DTEF. After all who continues having a relationship with a sponsor at the end of their ‘contract’.

I coined up the following response: ‘Dear Pained in Palapye. First of all, congratulations on single-handedly sponsoring someone’s education while simultaneously starring in your own financial horror film. You’re like a philanthropist with a tragic backstory.

You’ve been the human version of a scholarship—except scholarships don’t get ghosted. Your girlfriend is graduating, and you’re being downgraded from ‘supportive partner’ to ‘emotional collateral.’ Classic. Honestly, you deserve a degree in Advanced Regret. Next time, invest in yourself.

Or at least in someone who won’t treat your heart like a student loan. Also enroll yourself into something. Not necessarily in tertiary—maybe in a self-defence course against emotional manipulation or a workshop titled, ‘How Not to Date People Who Think You're a Wallet.’ Consider doing a podcast titled, ‘She Got a Degree, I Got Debt.’

And finally, remember: ‘love is blind, but debt is not.’ I felt good. It felt like I had somehow changed the world.

I answered this with the same tools I used for everything: wit, whimsy and a complete lack of expertise. And somehow, in my mind I thought it would work.

My assumption was people didn’t want precision—they wanted poetry. But maybe that’s the charm. They don’t want experts—they want someone who will say, ‘Dump her and start a podcast.’ I think they’re not looking for solutions otherwise they would route their letters to the right desk. They’re looking for entertainment, validation and someone to say, ‘You’re not crazy.’ So I will not be doing any referrals.

My mantra is if you write to me looking for financial advice I will answer back with all the expertise of a goat at a chess tournament – great energy but zero expertise. Just eat up the advice and you will be just fine! (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email admin@ultimaxtraining.co.bw