Mawuli Zogbenu: ‘Smell his fingers’

You have a husband who is usually moody and puts on a serious face anytime he returns from work. Then one Friday night, he comes back from work very happy and laughing and telling you nice things, throwing the baby into the air and catching it singing songs not written by anybody and as if he wants to speak in tongues, my dear Auntie, start suspecting him.

He has ‘imported joy’ from outside. Hold his left hand and smell his fingers; if the smell is close to that of onions and droplets of old slightly fermented urine, ‘then it happened’! He may bring you sickness if God no intervene.

Sin fascinates and assassinates o. You can also check the flap of his boxer shorts; the smell may be unusual with some moisture. Smell his armpit; if there is an unfamiliar soap smell or perfume or his usual deodorant smell is missing, then he has taken his bath after the illegitimate ‘this thing’.

You can also smell the singlet he wore that day to work; it is likely to have a strange perfume smell from ‘a third party perfume contact’. Bring his used handkerchief out from his trouser pocket; if it smells of tsotso cream or fatwik3ky3, I am sure the result from your investigations would be ‘positive’! Try it, Sister Adwoa!

Eish, the evil that men are doing er? We would catch them p3333! Nobody can catch me again o. You remember I was caught once when I got back home from work and she saw tissue on my ‘this thing’ and I told her I was learning how to clean the tip of my ‘this thing after urinating because I wanted to change my religion and that I used tissue to clean the place as my new religion demands? Ehern!
I have devised a new strategy.

When I know I could be a strong suspect, I won’t bath after the evil act o. On my way back home, I would wear my jacket like that with my tie on and go and play table tennis at the mall and sweat it out after which I will look so tired and smelly with sweat. That is a sign that I had a very stressful day. Finish! No be so? Be there playing the holier than thou, Mr Bonney!

I am not feeling too well; I had a bad cough last week and the coughing was persistent. I decided to visit a doctor. Upon entering the consulting room, I noticed the doctor was coughing more than me. In my mind, ‘is this the one I am coming to for solution to my cough problem? Ah well! I just pretended I had a call and disappeared from the consulting room. I am still coughing though.
I know the problem.

My towel is often too dirty and stinky. I wash it once every year. Logically I don’t even understand why a towel should be dirty in the first place. But the irony is that any time I check in into a hotel room for a couple of days, I want the towel to be changed every day with new one.
That is me too my problem.

Everybody has one problem or the other; no one is God! When people are not picking your calls when you really need them, you have no idea the problems they are also going through. Let us take it easy on ourselves. I really hardly get upset these days if any one tells me ‘I will call you back’ and the person fails to do so. I do it too; it is generally not deliberate.

You remember those days when you visit someone and you smell the aroma of food. The next thing that comes to mind is that ‘Halleluyah, they are going to serve me food’. Then you hear the chattering of plates and spoons and knives. The next thing you begin to do is to unnecessarily keep your eyes glued to the TV set as if it is a textbook from which you are reading to prepare to write your next exams.

Why did we do that? Sometimes we did that to see how serious we are about life but it is a lie o; it’s all because of the food. One day I waited for so long and the food never came. When I was leaving my visitor, I ‘vex’ roff but still managing to fake a smile. I got to the gate of the house only to realise the food was being eaten by a dog, those foreign ones. Not those local ones that eat banku and pepper and struggle to bark at a thief when they see one. You remember I had one such dogs before.

It won’t even bark for you to know there is a thief around. As soon as the thieves order him to lie down, it will be the first to comply. ‘Hands up’, it will comply! This dog er, hmmm! Ey! I visited an elderly friend recently and he was seen preparing tea. I thought it was for me but kpaaaaoooo! Without him asking, I just shouted “as for me I don’t like too much milk so long as there is sugar”. He looked at me and asked whether I was talking to someone else. I told him his tea. This matter er? Hmm!

The way I hate to see these street boys and girls knocking at car windows for coins er. Some of them have devised what we call ‘yiwasom’. Let me confess, I don’t know the English name for ‘yiwasom’ or is that what some Achimota people call ‘earbuds’? Okay o, me I don’t know.

They use it to remove remnants from ear. Ahaaaan! These little ones will harass you in traffic saaa. Is that what we call child labour or when an expectant mother is in the labour ward?

SSSCE 1994 or so had something that confused me in the exam hall. There was an essay question that required candidates to write about CHILD LABOUR. Honestly, I personally found it ambiguous.

Ambiguous in the sense that I could not tell whether they were referring to how children can go into labour and give birth or the practice that involves the use of children to do business at various places including stone quarries and selling on the streets!

After all, they are both ‘labour’. To be on the safer side, I avoided this particular question. It was not like the ‘True or False’ questions. You know, out of 10 ‘True or False’ questions, chances are that 5 are likely to be ‘True’ and 5 would be ‘False’ but how to tell which ones are True and which ones are False is often where the challenge remains especially if your head die like my own.

So for me, it’s either I choose True for all 10 questions or False for all. By all means, I will get 5 correct. Simple! If you don’t use your head, your body will suffer! It is only in the university that when I did that, they subtracted marks for every wrong answer. Too known universities! Hahahahaha!

Have a thrilling weekend and remember: ‘too much money is a burden; just enough to live a contented life makes life sweet.

If in doubt, start craving to have all the luxuries of life till small malaria attacks you. It is only then you would know that all that you need at that point in your life is to get healthy again; not to get more wealth.

God be with us all till we meet again next weekend but remember this is a very ‘Useless Column – Don’t Read!