Opinions of Saturday, 27 July 2024
Columnist: Mawuli Zogbenu
She catch me again; this time, red-handed inside the ‘thing’. I used my head. If you don’t use your head, your body will suffer. She insisted: ‘don’t tell me it is true’. Wow! Lovely lovely warning! How can I disrespect her by telling her it is true? Ah! My friend, your time may come if you have not been caught yet.
This is the clue: lie, just lie…it will not stress her. What she does not know will not stress her. Marriage counsellors keep going round round preaching to couples that communication is key in every successful relationship. Yooo! Me I should go ahead and tell my wife: ‘Daavi, my side chic said she needed money to do her hair and since I could not get her the money, she said she won’t give it to me again’? Give what to me? Me? Communicate? Maybe you. Abi it’s communication you want? Go ahead and communicate! Woman no beat you before er! Hmmm!
See how you are driving and over-speeding! Your leg sweet you too much. Freedom to over-speed when the police are not there may be nice but same freedom may cease when the unfortunate happens [God forbid]. The police will not be there when you leave your family to their fate forgetting that your irresponsible driving is responsible for the unfortunate!
Ei! You hear the news? They say some 100,000 persons are carrying HIV virus and they are not even aware. Where are they? You people should come out let me test you ooo. Inasmuch as this number may be true or even higher, I am wondering how this 100,000 was arrived at without testing these humongous number of carriers? This number has scared malaria. I have not been myself since this news was broken or broke this week as it made fear and panic catch me. Is the word ‘broke’ or ‘broken’? Which is which? I prefer the second one; the first one sounds like the nickname of poverty!
Self-test kits are now available. Go and check er! Don’t worry; the earlier you know, the better. Interestingly, these 100,000 people are said or rather suspected to be spreading it to people whose waist sweet them. Truth be told, a lot of us are being reckless these days especially with the emergence of the ‘hook-up’ industry courtesy social media. Some of us, men just look at the meat and say: as for this meat, it is too nice to contain any ‘worms’; and then hrrrrr…we enter! Sin fascinates and assassinates o, Bro; there is no exception to this rule. No one sows beans and expect maize at harvest!
It appears some young ladies too are not afraid of HIV and don’t like using rubber kraa bcos they believe rubber gives itching and so they are not comfortable with protection kraaaa and so they like it ‘slippery’! Mavis once told me it’s because of the scent and that it puts her off.
Hmmm! Others also feel the true feeling is to go ‘meat to meat’! Or is it bcos some of these ladies trust guys easily and look at the physical attributes and say bcos he is good looking and healthy, there can be no disease? I just remembered how ten years ago, Ablavi, my ex-side chic put it in when I was unaware, and I pushed it out and covered it again before putting it in and I went half clutch suddenly and I ‘came’ home thinking: what if? Five minutes and sometimes 2 minutes of ‘back and forth’ movements can take one by surprise.
The first shocker that can move you through the roof is when you are required to undergo a mandatory kind of HIV test! BP goes straight to 2,900 over 1,600! Sometimes the machine may read ‘error’ if the fear of HIV grips you. Abeg don’t ask me if I am talking from personal experience.
Do the right thing and don’t do things right! Wear condoms before you ‘misbehave’! As for misbehaving, I can’t stop you because your waist naturally sweet you and the desire to offload some ‘fluids’ can be over-bearing!
Our fears today may be as a result of what we did yesterday. No be so? When I was asked by my prospective employer in the early 2000’s, to go for an HIV test as a requirement to get that juicy job, I almost fainted when the following memories came running through my mind:
I rented a room at Tantra as a young bachelor. That was when I realised that changing the colour of the room paint used by the previous tenant can expose one’s evils! My bedroom’s original paint colour was pink. I repainted it blue to suit my taste. That room? Hmmm! You see when you are relaxing in bed with one of your legs resting on the closest wall sometimes rubbing the paint on the surface? Yes, that’s what happened! Different sizes of footprints were recorded and could be found on my wall thus exposing the pink colour.
The wall at the bedside of my room was the ‘victim’. It was as if the ladies came on ‘pilgrimage’ in my room. The blue colour turned into a multi coloured vertical football turf. Blue here small, pink there small with some shapeless dots of footprints of girls who came to my room for ‘prayers’ at separate times in the night! My landlord used to call me ‘pastor’ because I didn’t know how to drink alcohol. That’s how I came by that name. All the footprints too were from the left feet of the ‘participants’! Depending on the height of ‘whoever’ the participant was, one could see some footprints down, and others up while some were in-between {3hor ni hor).
But my landlord was equally bad. Eish! Oluman be bad o; always ‘changing oil’. I nearly made him my mentor. Be careful who you see as a mentor. His room was next to mine. Friday nights, when his wife is out of town for usually funerals, that is when you will hear sounds from Oluman’s room’ – kpluya kpluya kpluya! One day the wooden bed got broken from the impact with an accompanying instant sound ‘gbloooo’, followed by high decibel noise from rats in his room running helter-skelter – kwi kwi kwiiii! Oluman chop hot and I head him coughing; he was about to have an asthmatic attack! The rest is history!
Fast forward, I went to the lab to do my ‘HIV interview’ (test) before I get the job. I hate to talk about this guy called a lab technician who made me die before I died! How can you come and ask me if I came to the hospital alone or with a close relative before giving me my result? Must a relative necessarily accompany me to the lab for such a ‘simple’ test? ‘Simple’ is being used here reluctantly and advisedly. The scary part was that the result was sealed in an envelope and they say we should go for counselling first. A number of people came for that test and we were at the OPD area together.
As to whether I opened the envelope or not, one thing is certain – everyone has HIV; it is either one is positive or negative. that’s all! Don’t bring me problem; go for the test and stop looking at my face as if I am one of the 100,000! Hahahaaaa! But remember, 100,000 is a large number. Go and confess!