The Gardener King – The Weird Side of the Internet

The Gardener King – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Weird stories aren’t always funny. They’re weird. I’ve learned before that if one (me) is not careful, one (I) can wind up with a week of morbid tales. So I try to avoid obviously morose stories. But this story, while not particularly morose, tugs a little bit on the feels.

Eric Manu is a humble gardener working for a landscaping company in British Columbia, Canada. But he became more than that, when his 67 year-old uncle, Dat, passed away. Then suddenly he was a king. Well, chief, leader, what have you, of a very poor village in Southern Ghana (Africa.) And so he went to Ghana, was accepted as king with all pomp and ceremony, and he learned something – it’s not easy to be the king of a poor African village.

So, in the highest sense of all that is right and just in the world, Eric Manu went back to Canada, back to working as a gardener. Only this time, he wasn’t saving up for a PS5 (I don’t know what the hell he would save up for) he was saving up for textbooks and school supplies, medical supplies, all for his kingdom.

You know what? Honestly, Eric Manu should be a king. He’s willing to sacrifice the glory of royalty to actually care about his subjects. And yeah, I know, we can’t vote for him here for President, though he would need to work a little harder here to fix the education system and healthcare.

So, I don’t know what this is. Is it sad? Maybe, but then every poor village is sad, and we’re not crying over them. Or maybe it’s that this guy gets fantasyland news – that he’s a king – only to find out he’s not king of much. But I am totally taking the happy road here and marveling at how dedicated one man can be to people he doesn’t really know.

So does he get diplomatic immunity? He may not even need it – seems like a law-abiding citizen. He should at least get a break on an apartment that he can use for a consulate or something. Or the actual Ghanaian diplomat should take him out to lunch once in a while.

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