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My doctor saw me
the other day and accused me of avoiding her. I am avoiding her. We
have since kissed and made up. I am at that age when doctors and your
loved ones treat you as if you are going to die anytime soon. I don’t
blame them; old age is the leading cause of death in America behind
marriage, alcohol, and sex. Well, I am married, so forget sex; and I
don’t believe cognac and Chilean Malbec are considered alcohol, so that
leaves me with the burden of old age. The prognosis is grim: Old age
will kill me. But my doctor is determined to keep me alive by killing
me. I shall explain.

My doctor wants to
kill me. Enh, you ask? She has put me on a hunger strike. And now, I am
hungry, very hungry. Everything looks and smells good, even people, and
I just want to eat anything. My newspaper column would taste great with
some hot pepper splashed on it. But I can’t eat. My doctor is trying to
kill me. But she thinks she is saving my black ass. Who cares? I just
want to eat. Even if it kills me.

So, how did I get
to this point when I am not allowed to eat anything other than
cardboard sautéed in mineral water? My doctor claims this is for my own
good, but really, she is looking out for herself. She sees me the way a
farmer sees a cash cow. The longer I stay alive, the longer she can
bill my health insurance for the cost of her Maserati, her Lexus, her
mansion, etc. What good is a dead patient to a doctor?

My doctor is
always saying, “You know you are getting old (she keeps saying that!).
Stop drinking cognac, stop eating beef, stop eating shrimp, they are
bad for you.” She even knows about egusi and cholesterol, and she is
Jewish! I avoid going to her like one avoids the Nigeria Police.

But she has
tricks: she refuses to renew my maintenance medications until she sees
me. Maintenance medications? Well, it is like this. Once you get to a
certain age, many important body parts begin to refuse to work as
advertised, and you have to take maintenance medications daily to get
them to do their job.

So my doctor
decides I have to do this procedure where they look inside your
roun’about (intestines, etc) to see whether death is growing things
inside there! Olorun ma je! These doctors, what will they think of
next? She instructs me not to eat anything solid for 24 hours before
the time of this unnecessary experiment (it is unnecessary! I will not
die! Death is not my portion! I bind it in the name of Orunmila! Ase!).

I come from a land
of hardy people. Ask my mother. She has survived calamities that died
before they could kill her. And she did not even know it. Diseases come
to die in my part of the world. And we are still here. My doctor says I
may drink lots of fluids and clear broth, but no solid food. Clear
broth! Ah, I know what broth means. So I ask my wife if egusi soup is
clear broth. She says no, but I think it is clear broth because I can
see clearly the things inside the egusi broth… tripe, snails, cow leg,
smoked fish…

Well, I survived
that ordeal. I am now eating things. Things? The things that I eat, oh,
the things that I now have to eat. I cannot eat salt, absolutely no
salt. How bad is that? Try eating a bucket of fried eggs that has no
salt and that was fried with water (yes, water!) and without the egg
yolk. Hear my wife: “Ah! Ikhide! Bad cholesterol! Bad, bad! Bad
Cholesterol! Not good for you!”.

Or try eating
egusi that was not cooked with palm oil: “Ah! Ikhide! Bad cholesterol!
Bad, bad! Bad Cholesterol! Not good for you!” These things allegedly
should keep me as old as Methuselah. (“Hurray!” chant my creditors.)
They might as well let me die and then mummify me. That way, it is a
win-win situation for everybody. I get to rest in peace and they get to
keep my gorgeous body.

Life without the
things I love is hell. I have not had a drink of Chilean Malbec for a
long time now. My wife agrees with my doctor’s libelous opinion of
alcohol: “Ah! Ikhide, you know you are getting old! Be responsible! If
something happens to you who will pay all these bills? And who will
drive all these children to their soccer games and their dances and the
shopping malls? Who will take out the trash? And I would have to marry
again! I hope the person is rich this time! Olorun ma je!”

Since I stopped drinking Malbec, life has been strange. I walk
around all calm and at peace with the world; all my cells seem to be at
ease. Who wants to live like this? Shoot me somebody.