Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Date




Forgive me.
I have been so so busy.
This is not even a real post.
I wrote this story last year and decided to post it to fill for my silence.
I miss you all.


I was in love with Michelle Adebayo Halima Okoronkwo.
No, her name didn’t bother me one bit, which is one way I sensed my love was sincere.
This wasn’t some infatuation. I totally loved her. I dreamt of her when I watched the evening news. I smiled at her image as I brushed my teeth. When I put ketchup on my fries I squirted out her name all over my plate and stared in hungered lust. Yes I was in love with her. So when she said yes to my suggestion of a date I nodded my head, asked to be excused, wobbled to the bathroom and then screamed.

I was in euphoria until the night of the date. I whistled through the office. Sang in the toilet. I gave my boss a big hug on the way out. I hi-fived the Motor bike riders on the road whenever I got to a traffic light. And helped the PHCN men, who came to cut my power lines, carry the ladder to their car. Ah. Too be in love. All was going well until the hour before my meeting with my date. I walked out of the bathroom singing “Hapuya like that”.
And then my world fell apart.

What does one wear to a date? My last date had been ages ago. I couldn’t remember what I wore. I’d been more interested in getting out of the clothes anyway. I stood in front of the mirror in my boxers and pretended that I didn’t know that I knew that I was sucking in my stomach.
What to wear? I could wear a T-shirt and a pair of jeans but would that spell being too casual? Would she think I was some unserious bloke who took our date just as flippantly?
I tossed the t-shirt aside. Perhaps not.
I gave a long look at my tuxedo. Wasn’t a tux something you only wore for a wedding? If I wore that for our date wouldn’t I be going overboard? Besides If I did wear a tux and somehow got lucky tonight would it turn out very uncomfortable when we got around to more than kissing?
I reconsidered.
Maybe I should wear something native.
Some Senegalese outfit perhaps. Would that be wrong?
Would she consider me ....Razz?
I looked at my football jersey. What if she wasn’t a Chelsea fan? There were a few of those.
Sigh.
I kept on trying different outfits. None of them seemed quite right. Some were too loud. Too bland. Too casual. Too daring. Too dirty. Too many holes.
The clock kept ticking.
What was I going to wear?
Eventually I decided to pick the first two things that my hands touched in the heap.

Ten minutes later I was at our rendezvous point-Her home. She answered the door wearing a lovely little black dress that did wonders for her figure.
“Lovely outfit.” I said.
“Thank you.”She replied with a smile and then shut the door behind her.
She looked at me. “Yours too.”
I nodded my head in satisfaction.
Not from the compliment but from what I had seen.
Just before she shut the door I had glimpsed a pile of clothes similar to the one I had left in my house. Two piles actually.
The bigger one was clothes.
The smaller one looked suspiciously like lingerie!