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Romance is overrated.

If I could go back in time and pick an era in which I’d loved to be married, I’d pick the days of the Old Testament. Those were the days! A man’s life was easy. Because I have no recollection of Adam helping Eve zip up her impossibly tight dress for Abel’s christening. Or Ruth belching rage because Boaz forgot their wedding anniversary. Jezebel was the slay queen, but Ahab could still recognize her with her make up. Sarah even arranged a side chick for Abraham! Can you believe that?

“Baby, I’m tired of all these skank, no-fleek chicks throwing shade at me coz I’m old and I ain’t got no kid. I mean, who are they to disrespect me like that? I’m the wife of the father of many nations! I’m all sizzle, no fizzle. I’m bougie. Abe! Are you listening to me? Look at me, Abe. Look at me! I’m talking about us here! About the promise. And you are there milking that goat. That goat is not more important than what I got to say! Anyway, I was saying…what was I saying again? You’ve made me forget my thoughts. If only you were listening to me! I was saying…you know, I’m not even gonna let these li’l girls mess up my self-esteem. So, here’s what I’ma do. I’ma hook you up with my girl Hagar. She got nice, child-bearing hips and all that. You gonna knock on her tent and knock her up. Get your baby-making game on. Do what you gotta do. I don’t care. I just need a child. You feel me, Abe?”

I bet Abraham’s eyes lit up and was like “Word, babe?You is the best!”

Yea, I imagine that’s how the story will go in the New Revised Pervasion Translation.

Yup, Hebrew women of yore were sistas after a brother’s heart. They didn’t need their husbands to help choose a dress from a possible ten. Or remember birthdays. They allowed their men to be men. You know, drink wine, have concubines and not worry about raising the kids. Little wonder homeboys were living till 600 years!

But wives these days? If you try to help your wife zip up her dress and somehow snapped the zipper, boy, you are toast! If you escape the daggery criticism, you won’t escape buying a new dress. Which is an injustice because you were minding your business before being corralled into outfitting service. Men are no tailors; what do we know about zipping dresses? We are only experts at unzipping them. It’s like asking a doctor to also be a plumber. He plumb hearts not drains. You’ve get to let us do what we are good at. Which is being left alone. Why do you guys buy clothes you can’t get into easy anyway? A skinny jeans is called skinny for a reason.

Another evil I have seen under the sun that weighs heavily on man-kind is wives lambasting husbands for being “unromantic.” Utterly meaningless! It is a chasing after the wind.

I’ve been married twelve years and fifteen out of those twelve years, I have been batted over the head for not being “romantic.” “You are as romantic as a door knob,” she says. “You understand any language but love language.”

Duh.

If love has a language, what are its alphabets? A Gucci bag is not a language. It’s a bag.

I blame Hollywood and the West for its thoughtless influence over Nigerian wives.

Open the car door for her.

Pull the seat for her. 

Buy gifts for no reason. 

Pay attention to her rambling even if Liverpool vs United is on TV.

Do this. Do that.

It’s a worrisome state of affairs. While I was immersing myself in profound and intellectual text like Asterix & Obelix, my wife-to-be was being indoctrinated by Danielle Steele and Jackie Collins. It’s a catastrophic failure of our educational system. Who is censoring what these women read? Now, that ridiculous The Bachelor and Bachelorette are on TV seeding all sorts of ludicrous ideas.

By the way, it’s a treasonable felony to watch Zee World in my house.

Let me tell you; the idea of a “knight in shining armour” is a silly concept. First, in Africa, we have hunters, not knights. And our hunters aren’t jobless. They don’t go around looking for damsels in distress to save. Or sit around tables discussing dragons or witches. They go out there and kill a wildebeest for the family to eat. How is that for romance? Feeding your family. And what idiot goes around wearing a suit of tin in the African sun anyway? What are you, a tin of baked beans?

But I’m not against romance. On the contrary, I’m full of romance like a fool is full of himself. Cupid comes to me for ideas. Check this idea out: instead of giving your missus a bouquet of flower on Valentine’s Day, turn the flowers into two glases of zobo and both of you drink to love.

Yea, I’m dope like that.

Another evil under the sun is women requiring the guy to make a drama of a marriage proposal.

Here is the heart of the matter: we both know we are going to be Mr and Mrs. The cat knows it. The dog knows. Everybody knows it. So why do women require so much drama with it. I mean, it’s a sombre thought spending the rest of your life with someone. The least you ladies could do lighten the burden of the sentence.

The first time I proposed to my wife, she said no. For apparantly, no one proposes reeking of tobacco, without a ring and to TuPac’s Me and My Girlfriend. I couldn’t understand it. I mean, it was a starry night, we were alone in the car and Amaru was dropping serious bars. “All I need in this life of sin is me and my girlfriend.” What could be more romantic?

Look, I was not a Joe or R Kelly type of guy. Still not. Back then, I swore by rap. 50 Cents, Game, Eminem, Jay-Z and a host of sonorous crooners. Way before then, it was ‘Pac, Biggie Smalls, Snoop Dogg, DMX and other soulful brothers. I don’t know care for these wacked John Legend “All of Me” and Ed Sheeran “Perfect” dirges.

By the way, here’s a joke I heard about 50 Cents. If 50 Cents was hungry and he ate, what do say about him?

58.

Not bad, eh?

Back to the missus. Ire subsided, she made me realise that it was expected of a guy to propose with a ring. And preferablynot reek of tobacco while doing so.

Yes, ma’am. Got it.

So I asked her where to buy the ring. And she flared up again. She got down from the car and told me to ask my mates where they get rings from.

Which was a head-scratcher. Because when I spoke to my homeboys about a ring, they asked if I was Bilbo Baggins.

Well, I did manage to buy a ring and then proposed to her. Again. This time without TuPac. She accepted and here we are, two prodigious bairns after. Who one day may also lampoon their husbands for being unromantic.

I’ll tell you one way you don’t propose with to a Nigerian woman. You don’t propose to her with your dead mother’s wedding ring. You know, like you see in Hollywood. Don’t do it. Nigerian women don’t like used stuff for marriage. Or some cursed family heirloom. For every wife knows her mother-in-law is a witch.

My wedding anniversary is coming up and I’m supposed to plan something. Something romantic. Something unique. Which proves that wives don’t read the Bible. If they did, they’ll remember what Ecclesiastes 1:9 says:

“What has been will be again,
What has been done will be done again;
There is nothing new under the sun.

There’s nothing new. If I decide to buy her a yellow, 20-tonne, never-before-seen diamond, I bet some bloke out there has bought similar for his wife. So why bother? I’d rather use the money to buy her that new washing machine she wanted.

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2 thoughts on “Romance is overrated.

  1. YMA says:

    Your New Revised Perversion Translation would be a best seller and if you went on to Pastor a Church, you’d have Gen Z queuing up to take in a message they can relate to! An entertaining read….

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