This is the first
of an occasional series on the pleasures of marriage. I have a Facebook
friend; she is always trying to understand men. She must be married
because she does not understand men. Actually like many married women,
men get on her nerves. I don’t blame her, I don’t blame women, I don’t
blame my wife, I would get on my nerves if I was married to me! Who
needs the stress? So this FB friend asked on her status page, “What do
Nigerian men really want?” Well, as all married Naija men know, this is
surely a trick question that our wives ask us when they already know
the answer. For example, when your wife asks you the question; “Honey,
where have you been?” That means you are busted, start confessing your
yeye deeds. Even if you don’t remember, make it up. Trust me; this is
the voice of experience talking.
What do men want?
O beautiful women, it is really very simple. Men want all you women to
stop asking us questions. What does that mean? I say stop asking us
questions, especially the ones you know the answers to. My people, I am
not complaining but marriage is tough and it is our women’s fault. Oya,
I said it, sue me it is the fault of all you women who do not
understand us men. My father developed an elaborate maze of tricks to
survive the institution of marriage. He has been married now for 100
years. Whenever I am stressed I call him. I call him every day; my
phone card bill is atrocious. I know a trick that my father taught me
many years ago: to be extremely careful when I am enjoying another
woman’s cooking in the presence of my wife. My wife is the best cook in
the whole wide world so I don’t have this problem. Actually na lie, my
wife is the best cook in the whole wide world but my long-throat keeps
staring at other women’s soup pots. It is an issue that I have and my
doctor has not been able to fix it with all the therapies in the world.
It is like teaching a lefty to be right-handed.
I am a great cook
if I must say so, but I enjoy the cooking of women. Even as I am
writing this column right now, I have just finished polishing off a
plate of pounded yam and okro plus vegetable soup cooked by a woman
that did not enjoy my bride price and all I can say is that all sorts
of animals and Yar’Adua (snails!) lost their lives to satisfy my
palate’s issues. Even when I am on the Internet, instead of reading
weighty, sad articles by respected but depressed Nigerian writers like
Okey Ndibe and Pius Adesanmi, I read the delicious cooking, er,
writings of the great NEXT gourmet genius, Yemisi Ogbe. That lady can
describe ordinary white rice as if the angels in heaven cooked it. Na
wa. If I don’t read her essays in a week, I suffer from mental
kwashiorkor. That woman can cook, er, write.
Did I just say, I
have just finished enjoying another woman’s cooking? Mba O, I did not
say that, who wan die? Anyway, before I forget, whatever you do, never
behave like you are enjoying the food. Because madam is watching you.
If you start licking the plate, wo, when you get home, you are dead!
When the food is placed before you, loudly refuse the meal once. Once
O! When the woman offers it to you a second time, quickly ‘reluctantly’
accept it or she will happily withdraw the offer. Wrinkle your nose and
start picking at the food until it is all eaten. On the way home, give
the meal a bad review and compare it harshly to your wife’s cooking.
Your wife will like that. She will tell you lovingly that she felt
sorry for you as you were struggling to finish the food. She will say
lovingly, “Ah! Ikhide! You are so spoilt! You will have to learn to eat
other people’s food O! I know that you are used to my cooking but this
is ridiculous!” Ah, once she says that, your dog is sleeping alone in
her house because you, you are sleeping with madam.
One day though, we went visiting this family and this wonderful
woman of the house put before me a steamy pot of fresh fish ofensala
plus boiled plantain. I don’t know what that woman put in that ofensala
but as soon as I tasted it I was bewitched. No way could I wrinkle my
nose and pretend that this was simply ‘mek I manage am’ food. I simply
said to myself, when you get home tonight, you are dead, but it would
have been worth it. I ate like a starving fool. I went straight to the
doghouse after that meal but it was worth it. Life is good.
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