Of women and cars

She may be disagreeable sometimes…well, most of the time. But Allan's wife really is a good woman. Overwhelming evidence may indicate otherwise, but his Datsun actually is a good car.

  

Mrs. Allan and the Datsun, as narrated by Allan.

"Two years ago when I bought my Datsun, my wife nagged me into giving her a driving lesson. Looking back, that must have been the most dangerous afternoon of my life, for we stared death in the face three times in that one session alone. Naturally, I immediately banned her from all things motor vehicle, but undaunted, she scrimped on the kitchen budget, fed me vegetables for a month and raised enough cash to go to a real driving school. Fortunately, the driving instructors of that school were equally unimpressed by her potential and she was never licensed to drive. This put a damper on her enthusiasm and for two years, there was tranquility in her relationship with cars.

But all good things, as heaven ordained, must come to an end. Recently, a pre-natal misdiagnosis forced my now pregnant wife to re-evaluate her choice of maternity services provider, and by the next day, Pumwani had lost yet another customer and Aga Khan hospital had gained one. I was obviously dismayed by the expected increase in the relevant fees this was going to entail, but that was nothing compared to her passion for the wheel the hospital switch Inadvertently re-awakened in her.

“Every pregnant mother drives in for her appointment except me.” She complained after her second most recent trip to the hospital. “Why do I have to be the only one that walks in like a Kawangware resident who doesn’t own a car?”

“Maybe because you actually are a Kawangware resident who doesn’t own a car?” I suggested, desperately hoping she would deviate from her apparent train of thought.

No such luck. “I promise I’ll oil it, fuel it and get it washed when I come from the hospital.” When she really wants something, my wife has this remarkable ability, absent in possibly all women, of getting straight to the point.

My firm refusal earned me a night on the sofa.

But the next day when I was in a matatu on my way to work, I opened my wallet to pay my fare to and realized the car keys were missing. Their whereabouts were obviously a no-brainer, and I instantly sent a prayer heavenward for God to take extra good care of my wife and unborn child, and especially my car, that day.I was so worried that I left work early.

The car was not on the parking lot when I arrived home, But my wife was, and she had made a sumptuous lunch as if she had anticipated I would leave work early. She served me like a king, laughed at my jokes throughout the meal, asked about my day, curled up close to me when I lay back for a siesta and generally behaved very suspiciously. When she produced two Pilsners from the bedroom, I knew it was time I acted before I got too complacent. “Honey,” I asked. “Where is the car?”

“Relax.” She purred. “It is at the garage. Didn’t I promise to get it oiled, washed and fueled?”

I was extremely grateful, and I thought maybe I had been too rash in dismissing my wife’s driving competence. I resolved give her another shot at driving school and a license as soon as the baby is born, for she was showing herself to be very responsible.

This resolution was reinforced the next day, but for very different reason.

When I passed by the garage and I saw my car, I almost fainted. The paintwork on the left side of the car was gone. Not patchy or scratched, but literally gone. The front fender was twisted like the branch of an acacia tree, and it was impossible to ascertain the condition of the three headlights I had affixed to the fender only the previous week, since they weren’t even there in the first place. Gone too was the left headlamp, and the front windshield looked like a chart of the entire human vascular system, capillaries, veins and all.

And that is why it is absolutely necessary, imperative even, that my wife learns to drive. Her passion for the wheel, albeit intermittent, is absolute, and I don't want to even imagine what will happen the next time it hits. So I'd rather she actually knew how to drive when it does"

Mwiko

Like any resident in the general vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, I have BP.

No, I don't mean BP, the company that for the past month seems to have adopted publications with titles like 'Environmental Degradation For Dummies' and '101 Ways How NOT To Plug An Oil Leak' as its operational handbooks.I meant BP, as in Big Problems.

But first, a preamble of sorts. Last week, I used up all the water in the communal tank in my plot to do my weekly washing, and this unfortunately co-incided with a similar intention by my next door neighbor to my left to do her weekly washing. The result was a row of such magnificent proportions that we had to declare a termination of all interaction with each other henceforth to put an end to it. On the other hand, my next door neighbor to my right works at a Casino in town and thus only works nights, so as I write this, he isn't home.

How the status of my next door neighbors fits into this narrative shall be made apparent presently, but in the meantime, back to me and my Big Problems. Problem One: I am hungry. Ravenously hungry. I am so hungry, I was halfway through the glass of milk I found in my kitchenette when I came home today before I realized it was actually lime water I'd earlier poured in the flask to keep it fresh.

Problem Two was when I came home with Problem One, my house was in NETHerlands.

My house being in NETHerlands is a term I use to denote the fact that there is 'Nothing to Eat in The House' [NETH]  FYI, NETH is not a straightforward description of reality. It could mean there really is nothing to eat in the house, or that there actually is something edible in the house, but I am not in the mood to cook it.

The latter was the prevalent description when I came in with Problem One, for hailing as I do from the Western Province of the Kenyan Republic, it would be easier for a camel to knit with a needle and all that than for copious amounts of maize flour to NOT be found in my house at any given moment.

But although I wasn't in the mood to cook, I was in even less mood to waste my money at a hotel. And since I was not going to exist on half a glass of lime water alone, I was left with no other alternative but to light my paraffin stove, put on a half-full pan of water, wait for it to boil then pour in the flour. But I'd hardly started to mingle the concoction when there was a sickening crack!

Big Problem.

You see, almost every step of the ugali-making process has a built-in escape mechanism for when things go wrong. For example, too much water? Reduce it or add flour. Too much flour? Reduce it or add water. Too little paraffin/gas or electricity blackout? To hell with the neighbors. Build a wood-fire outside.

But unless your neighbors are in a position to lend you theirs, [and we have already established that for various reasons, mine can't at the moment,] there is absolutely no hope for you when right in the middle of the ugali-making process, the ladle suddenly breaks.

Kids say the darnest things.

THE FOLLOWING QUOTES ARE FROM A NEWSPAPER CONTEST WHERE ENTRANTS AGE 4 TO 15 WERE ASKED TO IMITATE "DEEP THOUGHTS BY JACK HANDY":

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last,which is why I don't have any clean laundry because,come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life?
Brandon - Age 15
 
My young brother asked me what happens after we die.I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth--that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally--but I didn't want to upset him.
Allen - Age 10

As you make your way through this hectic world of ours, set aside a few minutes each day. At the end of the year,you'll have a couple of days saved up.
Ricky -Age 7
 
Democracy is a beautiful thing, except for that part about letting just any old yokel vote.
Anthony - Age 10

Home is where the house is.
Jenny - Age 6
 
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher.That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number.
Susan - Age 15

Once, I wept for I had no shoes. Then I came upon a man who had no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he really needed them, right?
Dennis - Age 15

Mathematically speaking, a very weighty issue indeed.

According to somebody or the other, [I can't remember who exactly at the moment,] the main purpose of life is the pursuit of fulfillment and happiness. Fulfillment and happiness, according to somebody else I also can't remember at the moment, is best achieved by making the right choices.Therefore the main formula in the mathematics of life is all about making the right choices. Simple as ABC.

But far from straightforward.

 

Because mathematically, constants base the sequence of a formula, but the result of any problem will always depend on the variables. And in most cases, the variables have absolutely no inclination to behave rationally, thereby impacting on the result in ways that you may or may not anticipate. This impact can either be positive or negative, but bottom line is it WILL affect the result.

In a nutshell, what we have in the equation on life referred to in the first paragraph are constants, and they will always behave in a certain way. But when variables are introduced, the outcome may or may not go as expected.

If you have stuck with me thus long and are still reading this, I swear there is a point to all this. To prove it, I will get directly to the point I am referring to.

Marriage.

There are several reasons why people get married. For an overwhelming majority, though, the main goal is fulfillment in companionship. Those are constants. Achieving this of course depends on the right choice of spouse, That too is a constant.

One consideration in the process of choosing the right spouse is body weight. Body weight is a variable, and this is what I wish to discuss at length.

When men shop for a spouse, a key consideration is how appealingly the kilos are distributed across a potential acquisition's frame.

I am not saying that there is nothing wrong with this perspective. But men are by nature extremely visual, and since visions and perspectives are shaped by stereotypes, you really can't say that is our fault with the prevailing stereotype on beauty frowning so disagreeably upon bulk in a woman, can you?

From the mathematical point of view, body weight is a variable that can affect the eventual result a man is looking for in a lifetime companion. However in this regard, women have taken to shortchanging us of this preferred result in a manner that is decidedly callous.

A guy meets a girl and he sees that all her variables, including her mass, can produce an acceptable result, (i.e fulfillment and happiness,) when processed with the other constants in the main formula of life. For as long as they are dating, she maintains the weight variable at his preferred level until the guy loses enough intelligence to pop the question.

Once the formalities have been completed and she has his surname, however, the weight variable suddenly finds its own direction, and in most cases, that direction is up. You walk a Tyra to the altar, but one year later, you are going home to an Oprah; with kids and without the money.

This change in the weight variable will obviously have an impact on the whole equation, and a very negative one at that. When the guy was picturing a spouse that would fulfill and complete him, he probably had very definite ideas about how much she ought to weigh, and by interfering with this variable, the result will be instead of feeling completed and fulfilled, he will certainly feel disappointed and cheated.

And the funny thing is, women complain when the inevitable infidelity occurs after she has lost her allure with the weight gain, yet the 'Thin is in' stereotype that leads men to buying into a misguided cliche of beauty, is actually created and maintained by women.

Psychologically, men tend to find well-endowed women more attractive, and love handles actually form a very big part of our romantic fantasies.

The attraction to waif-like dolls is for show, because the world expects us to be attracted to its stereotype version of beauty. But the real beauty with substance image in our psychology has a more motherly quality about it, and trust me, weight is NOT an issue there.

Call Waiting

I know I've been mistaken,

But just give me a break and see the changes that I've made;

I've got some imperfections,

But how can you collect them all and throw them in my face..."

Groggily, I rub my eyes as I look at the irritatingly bright light flashing from my Nokia 6300 next to me on the bedside stool (Yes, I did upgrade again.) 03:22, reads the figure at the top right corner of the screen. Who could be calling at such an ungodly hour? I ask myself.

Actually, I lie. I don’t ask myself that question, because even without looking at the picture that I have as this particular caller's ID, (i.e. Steven Gerrard after one of Liverpool's numerous losses,) I already know who is calling. Even people I owe money know how seriously I value my sleep and wouldn't call me at such an hour, so it could only be one person.

Goodness, I think. Doesn't this girl ever sleep? And even if she can't sleep, why doesn't she channel her insomnia towards something more conventional, e.g. watching four seasons of Gossip Girl, instead of interfering with my own hard-earned sleep?

Again, I lie. I don't think that, because my sleep is hardly ever earned. Also, I know this girl actually does sleep, but only during the day. She uses the hours of night to call people trying to get some sleep and also, I suspect, engage in a little bit of night running.

(OK. She doesn't do that. I'm just being mean.)

"But you always find a way,

To keep me right here waiting;

You always find the words to say,

To keep me right here waiting..."

OK. Ungodly hour or not, fact is my phone is ringing and I have to decide whether I am going to pick it up or not. I think for a few seconds, and then decide I am not going to take the call.

"I hope you're not intending,

To be so condescending, it's as much as I can take;

And you're so independent,

You just refuse to bend, so I keep bending till I break.

But you always find a way, to keep me right here waiting..."

I mean, who the hell does she think she is anyway, calling me at an hour when only chicken thieves are supposed to be awake? Doesn't she know I have better things to do, such as indulge in my long-running dream about a lifetime of marital bliss with Amy Lee of Evanescence? Besides, she is a both a freakin’ Liverpool and a freakin’ Coldplay fan, and I think anyone who actually likes either Liverpool or Coldplay is respectively either disturbed or just plain insane, characters you obviously wouldn't want calling you at 3:22 in the morning.

 

[Chris Martin is an egg-head.]

“I've made a commitment,

I'm willing to bleed for you;

I need this fulfillment,

I've found what I need in you

Why can't you just forgive me,

I don't want to relive all the mistakes I've made

along the way.

But I always find a way, to keep you right here waiting...”

The next thing I do, of course, is reach over and pick up the phone.

SO, WHAT EXACTLY AM I TRYING TO SAY WITH ALL THIS?

Nothing, really. I just felt like dissing Val. Oh, and to let you all know that my ring-tone is 'Right Here' by Staind.

In defence of Polygamy

Contrary to popular feminist discourse, polygamy isn't a reactionary custom of conservative, uncivilized societies dominated by chauvinistic men hell-bent on keeping women in shackles. As a matter of fact, I hereby advance that polygamy is the most innovative and effective solution to a perfectly natural and obvious phenomenon: There are simply too many women in this world and not enough men to marry them all!

According to the latest statistics gathered by highly competent international organizations mandated to carry out such and related research, at last count women constituted 59% of the total earth population, while men made up a paltry 39%. [And we still rule the world? C'mon ladies!] The other 2% comprised hermaphrodites and other humans whose sex could not be comprehensively ascertained. Transform this to real life and throw in the biological reality of puberty which hits women earlier than men, and you begin to understand the gravity of the situation our ladies face.

This of course is no one's fault but God's or, for those among us that subscribe to atheism, nature. But as a firm believer in the philosophy that nothing happens by chance and everything happens for a reason; and buoyed by the basic conclusions of this research which have further indicated that polygamy now has grounds for renewed relevance, I further advance that whoever it is that is responsible for this demographic imbalance had a really good reason for it. .

The reason for this is simple: A woman's genetic make-up is inferior to that of Man, and this makes her only capable of successfully executing a limited amount of tasks at any given time compared to Man whose make-up accords him higher levels of versatility and added ability to multi-task. The calculations involved in the computations that arrived at this conclusion are extensive and boring, but the long and short of it is that you need more women per unit function than the number of men you would require to execute an equal and similar function. You get my physics?

This is the reason why for example that girl who can out-argue you on the finer points of Shakespeare looks just a little better than the great author himself, or why that cutie who has you happily visiting the ATM every day for five-figure withdrawals reminds you of Jim Carey in 'Dumb and Dumber' whenever she opens her mouth. It is simply impossible for a woman to play more than one admirable role in one lifetime!

Women are however too stubborn to submit to this plain reality and always vainly attempt to fit into multiple roles way beyond their scope. Admittedly, some [Like my mother, for example] do manage a limited measure of success, but most end up malfunctioning with excruciating results. There is this girl I once dated who was all that and more, but her attempt at 'Complete womanhood' as she called it was a disaster. You see, an ideal woman's bearing should be that of a queen in public and that of someone who works at establishments of dubious moral standing in the privacy of the bedchambers, but this girl somehow always managed to get the two mixed up. I won't delve into details, but like I said, it was a really excruciating period of my life.

Have you ever tried to count the number of women who can handle both absolute financial independence and marriage to a husband of less financial clout? Apart from Queen Elizabeth, you can count the rest on the fingers of a quadruple amputee's left hand. Yet men have been doing this since creation. How many times have you heard women complaining about the pressure of holding a job and raising a family at the same time? I stopped counting when I hit the million mark. Yet for men that is so natural, the sun rising from the East would elicit more surprise!

This highlights the very inherent wisdom behind polygamy.1. Women are uni-functional, men are multi-functional. 2. Like poles may repel, but humans always tend to seek out companions with similarities they can relate with. 3. For most men, similarities mean a combination of characteristics in them which unfortunately, as we have already established, can't fit in one woman only.

So the only solution, as you should have gathered by now unless you never spent the KIE-recommended number of hours in front of a blackboard, is to marry different women for different values. Like in my case, my ideal woman should be beautiful, clever an incredible cook, and a vixen in bed. But since I can't have Sade [The most beautiful woman I have ever seen] Rah Digga [I bet you all didn't know she actually has a degree in electrical engineering!] Keisha [A friend of mine, name changed whose stews give my taste-buds daydreams] and Sharon Stone [If you have ever watched Basic Instinct, you catch my drift] all rolled in one, then honestly, what is wrong with me having all four of them, especially considering there is more where the said four came from, and thus I will actually be doing a service?

Of women and cars: A competition in elegance.

Recently, I managed to acquire a rusty 1978 Mini Morris Minor.

 For those of you that have as much clue about vintage automobiles as I do about the effect of algorithmic disambiguation on octanomial algebraic equations truncated at the third significant figure, a 1978 Mini Morris Minor is the type of car you don't just acquire anyhow unless you've got some serious cash, electric power connections and a time machine.

Obviously, my purchase of the car wasn't inspired by a pertinent need to address my transportation problems. Introducing such a gem into the atrocious Nairobi traffic scene is irrefutable evidence of a glaring lack of common sense, and besides, I have a perfectly serviced Suzuki motorbike for that purpose. The reason I bought the Morris, actually, was in anticipation of the Concours d' Elegance.

The Concours d' Elegance, again for those as uninformed about it as I am on all things mathematics, is Kenya's premier jamboree for glamour, class and, as its name modestly suggests, Elegance. Basically a vintage car and motorbike pageant and auto fair for new and used vehicles, the show has over its chequered history grown from strength to strength since the Alfa Romeo Owners' Club started this event in 1969, and last year's event at the Ngong Racecourse saw a record 70 cars and over 35 motorbikes competing in the various categories on offer. I bought the Morris, which I have affectionately named Maureen, because I plan to refurbish her and display her in this year's Concours d' Elegance event.

Cue trouble.

But first, a prologue to the events leading to my insistence on participating in this year's Concours d' Elegance, and the very dark clouds that now hang over my decision and my chances of winning the Ksh. 1.5million on offer.

Before last year, my take on "that KenCell junkyard show" as I used to term the Concours d' Elegance, was that it was nothing more than a forum for white expats and loaded Asians to show off vehicles their parents used to drive around in during the colonial times. Naturally, I considered such an event about as exciting as the breeding habits of pre-historic crustaceans, and I would gladly have endured a 3-hour VoK documentary on soil erosion at my ex girlfriend's house rather than attend one.

But that was before my friend, Ogolla Jangsta, convinced me that there was more to the Concours than vehicles which belong in a Museum.

The girls who attend the Concours, Jangsta reliably informed me, would make Jesus, Elton John and Ricky Martin re-consider their sexual orientation. According to him, the most money attracts the best females, and since wheels equals owners who can afford wheels and anyone who can afford a vintage car must have deep pockets, even the thickest blonde can tell that such a high concentration of wheels in one place means an equally high concentration of moneyed males. In short, the girls would be there in droves, and they would be there to impress the moneyed guys, which meant that they would look good.

 I listened to Jangsta's logic, and it was was impeccable. So on 27th October last year, I attended the Concours, not to see the cars, but to see the ladies who had come to see the loaded expats and rich Asians who had come to see the cars.

And I wasn't disappointed, because those ladies were something and then some. Oozing style and grace, It was as if God chose the moments he was feeling most creative to work on each female that was there, and then the ladies themselves emphatically complemented the almighty work by accentuating their curvaceous anatomies. A dizzying array of elegantly stitched designs, arresting accessories and the most pleasant scents to match their bewitching smiles permeated the grounds, numbed the senses and induced a feeling of perfect bliss. I was in heaven.

And what they couldn't accentuate, these girls exposed. From cleavage-exposing blouses to ass-lifting pencil jeans to outrageously low-cut minis from which a thong would discreetly but suggestively peep from time to time, they were clearly out to get me. If I were ever to be a suicide bomber with dreams of the standard seventy virgins of my choice, I thought at some point, I wouldn't mind choosing my virgins from these [assuming, of course, that seventy bona-fide virgins could be obtained from this crowd. But I digress.]

As the day wore on, however, I got bored with chasing after the pencil jeans, and started to nonchalantly look at the cars. To my surprise, I found the exercise quite captivating and before long, I started to actually enjoy watching the cars. Their big, round, perfectly symmetrical headlights, their sleek, streamlined bodies, their dark wheels with shiny reams, their cosy interiors and upholstery, and the way rows upon rows of them were parked along the ground as the judges and revellers walked around viewing them. suddenly, I realised I was in the presence of glamour, class and...Elegance.

 Elegance. Class. Sophistication. The very things I would want from a woman, these cars had and then some.

I looked at a passing female donning a pair of dark stunners to ward of the bright sunlight, and what registered in my mind was a the perfectly symmetrical headlights of a Rolls Royce.

 I saw lovely young lady whose cleavage left absolutely nothing to the imagination, and all I remembered was an open bonnet displaying the perfectly maintained engine of a 1934 Napier-Railton.

Another lady walked by in high-heels that accentuated her very shapely calves, and my mind immediately raced to the raised wheels of a 1928 Ford Model A.

And as she walked away, her behind rhythmically undulating, I couldn't help but think of the streamlined rear bumper of a 1978 Morris Mini.

I looked at the glossy shine of all the vehicles on display and marvelled at the dedication of the owners, had obviously put in a lot of time and energy to make them shine like that. As the engines were being analysed, I further marvelled at the financial strain it must have taken to lovingly restore these vehicles to mint condition. Surely, they hadn't put all that in for the sake of it. what I was witnessing here was rows and rows of individual labors of love.

Labor of love. Love.

Suddenly, it struck me. This men loved their cars. Any given day, I realised, any of these cars could be the perfect and much better substitution for women. Even when well maintained, women nag. women whine. Women are stubborn. Women are never on time. Women sulk for no apparent reason. Women don't understand when you just need your space. But most importantly, women are impossible to understand. And none of these endearing qualities could be said of a well-serviced, well-maintained car.

Right there and then, I decided that I was going to get me a vintage car and work on her so that I would enter her in the next edition of Concours d' Elegance. I would give her all the love and affection I could give a woman [except the obvious ones that can only be done with a fellow human, of course] in the hope that I would win the next edition of the Concours d' Elegance.

And after a long search, now I have Maureen. Problem is, the woman currently in my life is jealous of all the attention I give to Maureen. She claims that I am neglecting her, and this has been the cause of many an argument between us. Yet Maureen never complains when I leave her out in the cold, fail to attend to her or call her bad names when I'm in a foul mood. See what I mean?

The tale of the tail.

So goes an old fable, One day an old dog came across a younger dog running in circles. "Hello, young one." He asked. "What are you doing?"


"Yo! W'zzup old dog" The younger dog replied. "I just discovered some bangin lil' secret that you ol timers probably didn't know. You see, I've just discovered that the secret of my happiness lies inside my tail, and I'm tynna catch it so that I can be happy forever!" and he went on running after his tail for all the world like he was a turbo-charged windmill.


The old dog regarded the younger dog for some time, and then he tapped him. "Excuse me, kiddo, but I got news for you. " He said, sagely. "You see, that happiness lies inside my tail is, to use your words, a 'bangin lil' secret' I discovered way back before your momma was a pup. But with time, I realised that running after it wasn't going to get me anywhere near it because the harder I chased it, the more it kept running away from me. But I also saw that when I stopped running after it and instead walked away and went about my business, it followed me!

I'm sure an overwhelming proportion of our esteemed readers must be conversant with the concept of reciprocity, that basis of social relations whereby everything we do for others is with the expectation that the person will give back, or 'reciprocate' in kind. For example when you go to the supermarket and you give the teller your cash, you expect that teller to clear you the goods you just picked from the supermarket shelves, or when you throw a dog your leftovers, you expect it to wag its tail and bark at shady-looking personalities that may venture near your premises from dusk till dawn.

This reciprocity exists in each and every aspect of human relationship. When your parents take care of you, they expect you to take care of them in their twilight years when the more muscular parts of their anatomy don't respond to instructions from the brain as readily as they used to. When your friend borrows your blouse, you'd hardly expect her to throw a tantrum when you inexplicably try to squeeze your substantial behind into that mini of hers you've always had your eyes on.

With relationships, reciprocity is even more pronounced. How many times have you ever heard the statement "After all I've done for him..." spoken by some damsel in distress after a breakup? Or the guy who believes that his Porsche, six figure paycheck and above average looks should get him the best female-world has to offer? It's all about reciprocity, and it is all natural thanks to the historical process of socialization to its values that humanity has been subjected to since the day Esau made a deal with Jacob over a bowl of bean soup.

However, the essence of reciprocity that most women are only too eager to miss by a solar system that includes Pluto is that this reciprocity ought to be balanced. Balanced reciprocity means, to use an economic perspective, expectation an equitable return for input in a venture. [Note: I said Equitable. NOT Equal.] So when I show the lady in my life some serious TLC, it is because I appreciate something that she has actually done for me, and I do it because I actually want to.

In the good old days of chivalry when moving mountains and crossing seas for love was not the product of soppy RnB howls and gutter Mills& Boon paperbacks but real honest-to-God actual stuff, men were ready to kill for a lady's handkerchief because they believed it was a worthy cause. This was because the ladies reciprocated by acting their station and never trying to usurp the natural order of things. They never demanded, but expected men to be chivalrous because they in turn didn't wait to be reminded to acted like ladies as men expected them to. Balanced reciprocity and everyone's happy.

But now ladies claim that we are all equal, [equal. Not equitable,] demanding for a place on top of the heirearchy, and yet still expect us to behave like we did when they had their rightful place a few notches down! Honestly, what else have they been smoking apart from good old Marijuana?

If you want me to be chivalrous and romantic, make me want to be chivalrous and romantic. And the best way of accomplishing this is by acting all vulnerable and in-need-of-protection. You see, nothing tugs at a guy's heartstrings more than the feeling of being in charge. The women of old knew this, and that's why men were willing to pander to their every whim.

So women, stop being aggressive and running after what you want like the little dog. Stop demanding equality. Likw the big dog, walk away and act nonchalant. The result, I promise you, will be beyond your wildest dreams.

Of women and touts.

You know she likes them lights at night on the neon Broadway signs.

She don't really mind; it's only love she hoped to find...

That above line should be familiar to all Generation X dudes who grew up with me during the Reagan era and the first Bush error of global politics. It is from one of my favorite hits by Bon Jovi, 'Runaway', and the reason I have used it here is because it aptly captures a malady peculiar to females: The Bad Boy syndrome.

No, I am not talking about an incomprehensible addiction to noise produced, directed, sung or otherwise concocted from a record label owned by Puffy or Piddy or Duddley or whatever it is that idiot calls himself nowadays. Rather, I am referring to that affliction in females whose symptoms include, among other disorders, adeptness at dismissing issues that matter in favor of mediocrity, propensity to frivolity and, most of all, attraction to form rather than substance.

As proof of this, for example,  lot of women, it has been established, just can't get enough of reprobates that make a living from stuffing living human beings into contraptions whose sole purpose of existence seems to be cramming as much noise as possible into the smallest space imaginable and then going on to cram even more people into whatever little space the noise has left. Women really think that a guy who earns his daily bread [or in this case, his daily Mbachu, Bale, Ngale and other unhealthy substances] from telling people who know where they are going where they are going is actually cool, and they believe that the degenerate act of swinging precariously from the door of a Matatu is the most macho thing since Schwarzenegger's role in 'Commando.'

Some things you look at and wish you could grab the silly girl who believes this nonsense and thoroughly thrash some sense into her head, especially if this female happens to be your daughter, sister or equally close relation. But feminism seems to be the official ideology in the halls of justice nowadays and such a physical explanation might get you sued faster than one Arunga's psychological meltdown, so you are left to simply shake your head in frustration and watch the madness.

And this syndrome, believe it or not, has a biological explanation.

If my memory serves me right, I remember Mr. Samson Silenje once talking about something to do with Binomial Nomenclature in one of the very few Biology classes I managed to attend back in high school. This, according to him, is the system of naming that gives every living thing a botanical name, for example Feminista degenerata [for feminists] or Idiota cabineta [for Grand coalition governments] and it is based on seven categories.

You will have to forgive me, it's been quite some time since I last opened a Biology textbook, so my memory is a bit rusty and I can't remember all the seven categories. [Plus I really wasn't that good in Biology...actually, I was quite bad...OK. I sucked in biology. Happy?] I however remember the first category in this taxonomy [There! I did remember a biological term!] was Kingdom, and that human beings belong to Kingdom Animalia. For those of you with extra inches of skull, that means we are actually animals.

Now, animals depend mainly on instinct for survival, and man is no exception. Most of our very basic behavioural norms are purely instinctive, as are the most fundamental decisions we make, and we normally refer to it as 'gut feeling' or 'sixth sense.'  But What separates  man from the rest of the creatures in Kingdom Animalia, however, is support for this instinct by the ability to reason. Our reaction to stimuli is at first instinctive, but the actual action we take more often than not is guided by reason. So we see the pouty, kissable lips or the smooth, loooong legs and are filled with lust,[instinct] but we don't commit our hearts until we are sure about what we are getting ourselves into.[reason.]

My reference to man in the preceding two paragraphs was in the masculine sense of the world, since this quality unfortunately seems to be lacking in most women. For them, it is almost as if they are all instinct and zero reason, which results in an incredibly poor sense of judgement and the natural affinity to bad decisions that comes with it. They always go for the outer trappings rather than the inner substance which really matters. If it is posh and exciting, let's go for it and worry about whether or not it is sustainable in the long run later. Classic signs of the bad boy syndrome.

An attraction to touts is simply the tip of the ice-berg. Fizzle Dogg, Sugar Daddies, fake Rastafarians, shady preachers, wannabe gangsters and anyone with a fake American accent are among a myraid of other suitors who also stand a good chance of scoring with these impressionable, less mentally developed members of our society.

Promises

When this lady I'm acquainted with declared that men have a problem with keeping promises, my first reaction was "And what the hell is the problem with that?" If I give you a promise, it is yours, as in for you. What business then do I have keeping something I have made for you? But that didn't wash with her, so I set off for the KNLS library at Community to come up with something that would hopefully be more in line with her perspective but still convince her of the fallacy of her assertion.

I was unable to get hold of an Oxford dictionary that I would have preffered for my purposes, and so I had to make do with a very huge publication of a dictionary I found in there to look up the word 'Promise.' [By the way on a somewhat unrelated issue, I noticed that 80% of the readers in the library at that time were men. Still wondering how it was that the first girl in this year's KCSE rankings was at position 11?]

Anyway, the publication defined a promise as "A declaration or assurance, expressed of one's free will, that one will guarantee or refrain from guaranteeing the happening of a specified act." It also went on to add that "This gives the person to whom it is given an implied right to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of that act."

So there we have it. A most comprehensive definition, if there ever was one, to help us mount an effective defense against the charge this lady, and later Eve, have leveled against us about our presumed incapability to keep promises.

First of all, a promise is a declaration or an assurance. But in many cases, the promises ladies accuse us of failing to keep aren't even declarations or assurances in the first place! Women are experts at taking miles whenever you mention a centimeter, so a smile in her direction and she is all a-yakking with 'the girls' about how you promised to call her for a date, or a passing comment about how warm Mombasa is in August and she takes it that you have promised her a holiday at Whitesands. My dear ladies, the defining feature of a declaration is actual expression, not vague implication!

And speaking of expression, the definition asserts that it should be of one's free will. So if I finally agree to get you that atrociously expensive microwave we saw last year at KitchenPoint in order to put a stop to your constant nagging, that is not free will, and therefore it is not a promise. If you know about my almost religious adoration for Wayne Rooney but somehow manage to have me agreeing to spending 'Quality Time' with you on weekend afternoons even when Manchester United is playing, free will doesn't feature anywhere there and it is therefore definitely not a promise!

The definition also allows for the implied right by the recipient to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of that act, which is where the ladies have us by the neckties. But Great expectations, like the great Ethiopian philosopher and writer Hama Tuma once said, make frustrated men. [or, in this case, women.] My dear ladies, once again I stress, this right is implied. Constitutions the world over grasped something  you always seem to have a problem understanding: That the space between the making of a promise and it's actual execution is subject to factors that lie outside the control of the promise-maker, and this is the very reason why legal obligation is seldom placed on the execution of promises!

However, the main reason men are reluctant to keep promises is because women have this despicable, horrible habit of using their promises against them. The major example of this is where women use pregnancy to trap men they have their hooks trained on into unwanted marriages or child support for children who may not even be theirs!

And it is not as if the ladies themselves are altogether prudent about the promises they make. As a matter of fact, ladies on average fail to keep promises more than men, and the only reason we never notice is because of how vocal they are about the promises we break, which deflects our attention from their own inadequacies in the department of promise-keeping.

But all in all, promises do not have to precisely fit within the confines of our definition. What matters is the spirit of the promise, i.e what the maker of the promise intended when he made it. But that said, it is very few men that would deliberately break a promise. For a man, pride is everything, and the mark of a man's pride is how consistent he is in keeping his word.

Miss Mboch

First of all, I'd like to make one thing clear. Cheating is bad, and if you feel you need to have sex with more than one person, then you should either not have a romantic attachment to both of them, or you should be married to both of them.

That said, let me now begin by apologizing for one apology I'm never going to make: I'll never ever apologize for behaving like a man and holding the attitudes, values and perspectives of a man, for the simple reason that I am a man. But then again, I highly doubt I'd change my behavior, attitudes, values and perspectives even if I had the power to do so, and any female that has a problem with that can go take a running jump.

So being the man that I am and conforming to the dynamics of Society and Biology, I have a pretty clear idea about what I'd expect from a marital relationship. Society tuned me to demand respect, deference, commitment and responsibility from my spouse and in return, I was supposed to reciprocate by availing to her corresponding amounts of the same. Biology on its part put in me the desire and expectation for good, fulfilling and regular sex.

Should these two dynamics strike a balance in a marital union, harmony reigns and a stable relationship is virtually guaranteed. We succeed in building a solid, functional entity that gives both of us a sense of fulfillment and a desire to protect and maintain such a precious gem.

But thanks to W omen's Lib, Affirmative Action, Gender Balance and other equally disastrous concepts of the feminist catastrophe`, this balance is in society is facing a kind of threat it has never encountered before. Women are now demanding equality in the distribution of duties instead of stressing equitability where responsibility is appropriated basing on ability. They forget that all the responsibilities they had before, all the activities relations and interplays within the home that they have been involved in since time immemorial, are vital bonds that hold the basic unit if society, ie the family, together.

Instead, they develop this strange notion that a fat payslip at the end of the month would compensate their forbearance of these very necessary responsibilities and even grant them a few extra liberties, such as the re-arrangement of the power structure of society with them at the top. They choose to spend all their time strategizing on how to consolidate their new-found position and delegate more and more of their household duties to house-helps.

And this creates a problem. Two problems, as a matter of fact. One, instead of a marital union being a strong, vibrant arrangement that is mutually beneficial and an object of pride, it instead becomes an unstable, non-functioning entity that is more disgusting than alluring. And two, the needs that the marital union was supposed to fulfill in the first place don't simply disappear. They are still there, and they still need to be fulfilled.

I still need to experience the respect, commitment and deference from the person I love, even if only for my ego's sake, but now that I'm seeing less and less of my spouse, I begin to associate my well-cooked and timely-served food, well-kept house, neat, well-pressed clothes and good-mannered children more and more with my house-help than my wife, and along with it goes the gratitude for these small pleasures of life that really matter.

And I still need sex. Good, fulfilling and regular sex. But I can hardly count on my wife to be in the mood nowadays because her activities are taking a heavy to on her, and worse still, she starts to have sex only to indulge me. Now, let me tell you, no man except a very desperate one, appreciates sympathy sex. Sex should be both mutual and consensual, I will doubtless start feeling short-changed and cast my attentions elsewhere. One guess whom I'd likely go for!

Women make the mistake of viewing house-helps as lesser human beings, working machines who come in, work, get paid and leave. They forget that these are actually flesh-and-bone humans with feelings, desires and ambitions. So instead of CSWs who are dangerous, illegal and could go through my reputation like a tornado through a shack, or female workmates who carry more baggage than a Cucu at Karatina and are, if anything, more strung up than my wife, it's only natural that I'd be drawn to the timid, bashful and reserved house-help like a sailor to a siren.

In conclusion,I reiterate. My personal views towards cheats aren't exactly charitable. But just because something is bad doesn't mean its justifications should be dismissed offhand. And until women learn to take their marriages seriously, then they shouldn't keep asking why men stray.

Parenting

One morning, Mr. Holloway, a teacher at Brooksfield High, caught two boys, Scott Miller and Owusu Abezuka, smoking pot in the boys' restroom. He sent them to the principal, who immediately called the boys' parents and notified them of their sons' transgressions before sending the boys home.

***************

Scott's father, Herman Miller, was a wealthy Wall Street stockbroker. He was stunned when he received the principal's call, and he promptly called his wife, a counselor at a nearby hospital, to tell her the disappointing news. They agreed to speak to Scott about his behavior as soon as they got home that evening.

During dinner, they gently broached the subject with their son, asking him when, how and why he had started smoking Marijuana. They listened earnestly as Scott revealed he had been smoking for about a month, he had started doing so after he and his friend Owusu had been persuaded to by some cool-looking seniors, and that he actually liked the fix smoking the drug gave him.

Scott's revelations shocked his parents, and after a lengthy lecture on the ills of smoking Marijuana, they made him promise he would try to kick the habit before sending him to bed. Then when they themselves retired to bed, they had a long discussion on the matter before finally agreeing to pay more attention to their son.

***************

Owusu's father, Yunnus Abezuka, was an immigrant from Cameroon. He owned a small hotel which specialized in Cameroonian cuisine, and he was busy pounding yam for the lunch-time rush when the call from the principal informing him of his son's Marijuana use came through.

Immediately, he called his wife, who had just finished making the Egusi soup, and asked her to finish pounding the yams as he had some important business to take care of. Then taking off his apron, he quickly mounted his bike and pedaled furiously home, arriving just as Owusu timidly walked in.

"Young man, why aren't you at school?" He shouted.

"The principal asked me and another boy to go home and bring our parents." Owusu replied in a tiny voice.

"Why? Has the school introduced compulsory classes for parents?"

"No, father. Me and the other boy were smoking..."

One second he was having problems explaining himself to his father, the next second he was having problems clearing the several billion stars that his father's thunderclap of a slap had produced inside his head.

"I send you to school to fill your head with lessons your teachers and your books give you inside the classroom, not with queer substances your friends give you inside the toilet. Do you understand?" Mr. Abezuka thundered.

"Yes sir!" Owusu sobbed.

"Stop crying like a woman!" Mr. Abezuka roared and Owusu instantly stopped sniffling. "Now listen very carefully. You will never, ever from now onwards touch anything that even vaguely resembles Marijuana. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes sir!"

"Good. Now run along and help your mother with the lunch time crowd before I bash your pot-smoking mouth in!"

***************

The next day, Mrs.Miller, Mr.Abezuka, Scott and Owusu met with the principal at his officce. The boys apologized for their behavior and after assurances from the parents that they would be closely monitored, the principal doled out appropriate punishment rotas and everyone was dismissed.

Mr.and Mrs.Miller paid more attention to their son after the incident, and when he succumbed to pot smoking a few months later, they took him to rehab until he kicked the habit. He still smokes from time to time, but not in harmful quantities.

In the Abezuka household, the incident was never mentioned again. Nobody needed to, for Owusu never touched Marijuana again.

Miss Independent.

Faults with women sometimes tends to jump out at me so readily, it would actually be boring if it weren't so frustrating. All I have to do at times is randomly pick out any woman and observe her, and in five seconds flat I'm guaranteed to have spotted a quirk or two that puts a slip of sandpaper on my nerve endings.

Recently, a nephew of mine was celebrating his Birthday, and I took him out for a treat at a nearby restaurant. There, we ran into a lady friend of mine I haven't seen in ages and naturally, we started to catch upon each other's lives, kids, spouses and all.  I happen to share a couple of family features with my nephew and so she assumed that he was my son, an assumption I made no attempt to correct.

But when I asked her about herself and whether she had already started her family, Her response might have come straight from a basic feminist operational handbook. No, she told me, she did not have a hubby or kids because she was an 'Independent' career woman with her own car, fully mortgaged house and loads of cash in the bank. She didn't see the need to curtail her independence with some demanding hubby or a squealing toddler and besides, men according to her share several characteristics with that creature which has devout Moslems contemplating murder.

Instantly, whatever pleasantness that might have come from bumping into her evaporated and I wished I had resisted my nephew's heart warming pleas to take him out that morning. With the alacrity of a late intern, I hastily mumbled something about the lateness of the hour and said goodbye, hoping never to see her again in this lifetime.

Could somebody please tell me what exactly is the naturally occurring hallucinogen in women that makes them associate financial stability with a right to bash men, all in the name of being 'independent'? If you get around enough, you must have come across the type. Those who just because their presence anywhere is announced by the hoot of a Prado, expect society to always hold them in awe and deference; those ones who believe they are the most independent thing since December 12th just because the figures in their bank balances are followed by more zeroes than I ever accumulated in mathematics tests back in high school. 

But then again, what else would you expect from minds at such an elementary stage of evolution?

Independence, as far as I know, is the ability and appreciation of the ability to do things for oneself, borne out of freedom from control by another entity. Now, basing on this definition, do we really have anything like a truly 'Independent' woman?

Indeed, there are very many women who wouldn't mind doing things for themselves. But nevertheless, I am extremely confident in my assertion that more often than not, women would much rather we did things for them. Have you ever noticed that despite their bleats about being subjugated, it is always the authoritative, assertive alpha males that women are always falling over for? Shout all you like, but deep inside every woman revels in being dominated by a figure of authority, financial stability notwithstanding.

This independence is borne out of freedom of control by another entity. On this count, how well do our ladies fare? For a man, financial stability is indeed a source of a considerable amount of pride, but a man mostly seeks wealth so that he can be comfortable. Power, respect and authority may be the more manifest goals, but ultimately, a man wants his money to work for him. But for women, wealth is a means to prove that they too can be like men. It is their way of getting back to a male-dominated society that they feel is to pay for their bitterness from life's frustrations.

In this case, the 'independence' they so much brag about is not independence in the truest sense of the word since it is controlled by another entity: a drive to prove themselves. They can get what they want, yes, but mostly what they crave for is acknowledgment of their capabilities, and they would be prepared to give up anything if such acknowledgment were to be obtained. To this end, it means this 'independence' is simply a figment of their imagination; they are still shackled by a need to be acknowledged by, ironically, men.

So a piece of advice, my dear ladies, from a quote by the great Lebanese poet and philosopher, Kahlil Gibran. "Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness. If you want true independence, remove male bashing from the equation and do something because you actually like doing it. That way, your independence is pure, and anything else such as financial stability is simply a bonus.

Lunchtime

It's a few minutes past One, and I'm seated on a plank of wood suspended between two other wooden stumps embedded to the ground inside a long tin-walled shack. The location is along Lunga Lunga road in Industrial area, and judging by the frantic pace at which the waiters are rushing, these people are hungry

"Teargas!" The waiter who has just taken my order suddenly shouts, and I have to physically restrain myself from racing for the door and clearing the place as fast as I can. This is, after all, one of the seedier parts of town where riots are not altogether uncommon.

But I need not worry for my safety. The purpose of the waiter's blood-curdling yell, it turns out, is not to warn the assembly of eaters in the food kiosk of the presence of riot-busting fumes. Rather, he simply wishes to inform the harried-looking waitress behind the small kitchen window to include some pepper in the Karanga I have just ordered.

Welcome to the world of low-end dining.

Beware: Tenacious Bitches.

We men have always prided ourselves as the hunters in the dating and relationship wilderness, with the women as our prey. But very quietly, the tables are being turned, and the women are now the hunters. And this is happening so subtly, most men don't even notice it and probably never will.

So you feel like bragging to your pals about how you had that lass at the party eating out of your hand only hours after you two met? Hold up, man! Chances are she actually saw you first, decided she liked you, found a way of getting your attention, [which probably wasn't too hard,] and then sat back and pretended submission to your charms.

Simply put, the man does the courting, but it is the woman that chooses the man who will do the courting. Sorry guys, but that is the new reality in the dating field.

However, now that we have ourselves a fundamental circumstance of life where women are for once actually on the driving seat, something just has to go wrong somewhere. That is as inevitable as another trophy-less season at Ainfield. And the problem in this circumstance is tenacity.

There are women out there, (and their numbers are quite disturbing,) who quite simply won't get the hint that a guy is not that into them. Even when you make it plain as day that instead of dating them you would rather find more interesting things to do with your time such as root canal surgery or supporting Liverpool F.C , they simply refuse to get it.

And the saddest bit is, there isn't anything men can do about it. It is said that men can't live with women and at the same time can't live without them, but on the other hand, women simply can't live without us, period. So since we are a basic female need, the female hunter aggression is something we as men need to learn how to live with because there is no alternative.

But women also need to understand that some prey just can't be had. If a man is not into you, I swear it will be much easier to compute the microphysical dynamics of thermal disambiguation in a cubic decimeter of condensed compounds from Neptune's ionosphere (without a calculator) than to get him interested in you.

To help you know when this is the case, dear sisters, I will now give you three main ways of knowing that pictures of romantic bliss don't pop into a guy's head when he thinks of you.

One, a guy that's not into you will spend as little time with you as possible, despite there being plenty of time and close enough proximity between the two of you. So if you live in plot 917 Umoja 2 and he lives in plot 918 Umoja 2, yet he spends as much time with you as a trophy in the general location of Liverpool, then it is time, like Jesus would say, to cast your nets elsewhere.

A man who is not into you will also not exhibit any signs of jealousy when there is evidence of another man in the picture. Men are naturally very competitive, and more so when striving for a woman's affections. He will get very jealous if he even suspects someone else might be on your speed dial, so if you detect no such apprehension from your prey when he sees you in the company of Biko Adema's cute twin, then sorry sis. Wrong number.

And then there is the fallacy that men always forget important dates, and the truth behind it carries the potential for any woman to know whether or not a man really likes her as much as she hopes he does. Indeed, we do pay scant attention to birthdays and anniversaries, but that is because we don't think they are as important as the things we prioritize.

However, if a girl means that much to me, I will do my best to remember the most minute details about her. The reverse, as you can imagine, is also very true. So if your birthday is on Christmas day but he still forgets despite the fact that your name is Christmastine, then allow me and all of us at ITHSU? this opportunity to offer you and your chances with him our sincerest apologies.

But all these hints and signs are nothing compared to straight up honesty. Thus if you really want to know whether or not a guy is into you, the best thing to do is to go straight up to him and express yourself. Trust me, no guy that is into a girl will even dare to think about not giving you a straight answer, so forget your fear and go for it. After all, In this age of Women's Lib, such things no longer shock us and you will not be considered a brazen lass.