Thursday 27 March 2008

Scent Of A Woman

A few days ago while skimming through sha’s post, I noticed that, in her own inimitable way, she was on a warpath against those women who plaster pictures of themselves with some new bloke they just met, all over Face Book. The post struck a resonance with some thoughts which had been embroiled in my mind since I had a conversation a few weeks ago with someone quite close to me.

The gist of his idea is that nowadays, as soon as they meet a man, some women go quite primeval by cocking up a leg and ‘pissing’ all over him in order to scent-mark him. I mulled over the concept and on reading sha’s post, wondered if pasting a new flame’s pictures on face book, especially when not reciprocated, can be regarded as scent-marking. I also don’t believe I would like to be scent-marked, under any circumstances.

Do women really scent-mark men? In romantic life, I can imagine that they could, same as men may scent-mark women, but at play? And at work?

What purpose would scent-marking serve when the next woman can just walk over, cock up her legs too (I really like that picture) and pass urine over the active mark, thereby masking the existing odour with her much stronger and more recent one?

On a parallel vein, I would like to share some marriage anecdotes that were sent to me a while ago…

* So many options: Poison, sleeping pills, hanging, jumping from a building, lying on train tracks, but we chose Marriage, slow and sure!

* A man who surrenders when he's wrong, is Honest. A man who surrenders when not Sure, is Wise. A man who surrenders even if he's Right, is a Husband.

* Men want 3 qualities in wives: Economist in kitchen, artist in home & devil in bed. But they get artist in kitchen, devil in home & economist in Bed.

Monday 17 March 2008

Adufe, ololufé mi (Adufe, my love)

Adufé, a few days ago before I left you to go to bed, I looked deep into your eyes with the promise of a long day tomorrow. We were happy with each other. I knew I would be getting up early in order to mount you and let you do what you do best – drive me crazy with pleasure, a special delight that would last almost three hours tomorrow at the crack of dawn, and another three in the evening. I was a content man.

When I got up in the morning, I prepared myself quickly and rushed to your side to begin our enjoyment. To my fury, you had been raped overnight. The forces of darkness have struck again, my jazz-wielding friends have done what they do best – come out under the cloak of darkness to defile the pure. Otá aje; omo oju’orola ri, to bimo, t’oso ni Olaniyonu Olawumi (enemy of industry; one who has never experienced wealth but gives birth and names the child 'wealth has problems, I desire wealth').

My journey was long and my time short so I did not have much sentiment for you that morning. I made am instant decision that my affair had to be with Abedó. This had not been my plan. As you know, Abedó is thirsty, loud and wild, and always tries to bring out the feral in me, besides, I prefer for our liaisons to be at night; nevertheless, it was she that accompanied me on my journey to Wokingham that morning.

As I take you to hospital the next day, I muse that you have been besmirched. I also ponder whether to share this with my blog friends, decided to because of the trend in recent posts about male violence against females and wondered if this would be classed as a violent act, since it was perpetrated by a woman. Is it even the more violent as money is yanked from my wallet to pay the excess charge on your insurance (Americanised version: deductible – thanks, Sherri) for the replacement? Incredibly, some ask, what did I do, as if it takes one person’s actions to turn another evil, as if evil actions can ever be justified in any way.


Abedó

For the next few days until Adufé is well, my darling Abedó, you will give me passion during the day and at night. You are magnificent as well and have your own particular skills, quite untamed. The man that tries to tame you will probably end up broken.

Spare a thought for Akanké, the ageing tart. She is the craggy one that gets dumped on, she is second-hand and still trying to be relevant, is now jaded and menopausal, but perhaps still gives some pleasure to the desperate.

PS Adufé is now well and back from hospital

Monday 10 March 2008

Presidential Suite

A friend called me today to tell me this story (you know me and my naija’s at the airport stories). She had a guest who came in from Nigeria Sunday and who, when questioned at immigration about where she would be staying, said: “Presidential Suite”. The answer, of course, made her an immediate candidate for further close questioning. She was pulled into an interview room and asked, ‘presidential suite where’? To which she responded “Presidential Suite Liverpool Street” – I’m guessing she’s now referring to London’s Liverpool Street market just off Bishops Gate in the city).

Please, please, don’t even ask why she gave that retort. I’m inclined to believe that this was an extension of our nigerian ‘big-manism’, or, in this case, ‘big-womanism’, when we feel the more important we make ourselves out to be, the more respect we will attract.

Four hours later, and after intensive questioning including a meticulous strip-search, when they probed and poked places where the sun ‘don’t’ shine, they let her go.

===============
The story above reminds me of a personal one. One of the closest friends to my ex-wife, who lives in Maryland (I know her well too as we were all at the old Unife together) had an older sister coming in from Nigeria for a course sponsored by her employer – the NNPC. As we are wont to do as Nigerians, she did not wish to pay for the hotel and sustenance for which she had received a foreign exchange allowance and decided to stay with us for the 6 weeks. I did not know the woman and kicked up a fuss about living with strangers, however, my ex did know her, having met her a few times on visits to her friend in Lagos before we all migrated to our various new countries, and it would have been awkward for her to say no.

Several peculiarities accompanied the woman into my house, one of which was her propensity to stand over me during my dinner if she wanted a favour and I said, ok, please wait until I finish dinner; and she always wanted a favour, and I always said ok, please wait. She would simply stand beside me until I finished dinner, which was extremely disconcerting, especially because she was over 6 feet tall and big to boot. Another was her staring at you for about 30 seconds after you spoke to her, like she was lost. After a couple of days, I was filled with enough disquiet to bring it to the attention of my ex. She had noticed some things too, all of which would take up too much space to put down.

The most annoying thing was that as a Muslim she insisted on playing tapes of the Holy Quran in the living room at 5am every morning. So I gave her a small tape player for her religious duties, but no, she was determined to use my music system with the resultant effect that the deep bass reverberated throughout the house like an avalanching rockslide every morning and we all came awake. I explained to her that low frequency sounds tend to carry and are louder elsewhere than from where they originate, to no avail, it was the big system she wanted. So I endured sermons in Arabic for six weeks, the noise bouncing off the walls like some techno party.

It all ended on a funny note though. Towards the end of her stay, my ex had earned a degree of freedom from her, as she now seemed to know her way around London a little. So she decided to go to Liverpool street market, yep, the same one from where you can buy ‘disposable’ shirts at 4 for £10, and wrist watches at 3 for £10. I described the train journey to her (indeed, I worked on Bishops Gate at that time, but since she wanted to get there for 12 and leave around 4pm, I could not help) – 'get to Elephant and castle, take the Northern Line to Moorgate station, ask anybody, Liverpool Street is literally 5 minutes’ walk'.

At 11.30pm that night, my ex had started to worry, as ‘sister’ had not returned. I could not care less and was only counting down the days for her to finally leave. Then the phone rang. It was her and after a confused 3 or 4 minutes, my ex passed the phone on to me:
I think I’m lost, she says.
Where are you, I ‘goes’.
I don’t know, she says.
Look around, I goes, there must be something
I think it’s a train station, she says
They have names, I says
It says, Canta…, Cantry…, Cantarry…
Spell it, I says
She spells Canterbury! I said: you’re in Kent. Then, we lived in Thornton Heath in Surrey, which is essentially South London. Apparently, when she got to Elephant & Castle, rather than go for the Northern Line to Moorgate in London City as I described to her, she asked a man who, in being helpful, thought she was going to Margate in Kent and prescribed the relevant trains for her, 85 miles away.

Friday 7 March 2008

T G I F

My last post was one for which I had to carefully balance my argument as well as my comments, being conscious of those fearful ‘independents’ out there – you know who you are, you modern-day dinosaurs and tigresses – sherri, florida, g-nigeriana, desy, isi, indecent one (who would pour hot water, or was it oil? on laspapi's head), sha, afrobabe, allied, catwalq, anon gal, 30+, nicky, for the love - dare I continue?

Whilst I was not surprised by the bias of some comments, some totally astonished me. I mean, sherri agreed with me! I’m still doing joyous back flips and excited cart wheels. The flip side of that was onome: now, this was a woman I was in love with, her poster hangs over my bedstead, my phone ring tone sings ‘onome, onome’, if anyone was going to agree with me, it would be her. Always so temperate, always came across as very nice. Did she agree? Not only did she react ferociously, she informed me she has withdrawn her approval for me to hang her poster in my room. Talk about unrequited love. Onome, that’s it for us, I have discovered a new love that omosewa kindly pointed out to me in the comments section of the previous post, maybe she will love me as much as I loved you.

Thank you for the offers of alabukun, anadin extra and isi ewu. I don’t want to sound like an ingrate, but only the isi ewu will do, especially since I feel better now. For those of you who ignored the fact that I had sandpaper down my throat and nevertheless, demanded an update (erm, uzezi), I will attend church this evening to beg for the spirit of forgiveness.


HAPPINESS IS…

* Knowing you’re going out tonight and getting into bed at 10.00 pm anyway, for a nap.

* Two very young boys (12, 13?) selling gala and handkerchiefs under the blazing afternoon sun on Ikorodu Road at Maryland, arms across each other’s shoulders, and laughing

* Seeing old friends after 20 years and you continue where you left off

* Being able to sleep with both eyes closed

* Watching your children grow

* Going to bed without any consideration of when you will get up