This one is about my date with Phillip, a prophecy, a langa zebra and weed.

These buggers have to be on crack!  They must be.  How else do you explain an institution whose own audit finds that most of their staff is incompetent receiving ISO certification?  Crack!  What criteria, pray tell, is used to give this most esteemed certification?  Quality of the product and/or service delivery?  Or perhaps the quality of the management and staff?  Perhaps its the efficiency of the company, or maybe the satisfaction of its customers?  Or could it be that someone just managed to fill out the form correctly?  Even the MD of KeBS, not KBS, KeBS, is quoted as wondering ‘How now?’  All I’m saying is an entire city cannot be wrong, can it?  Crack babies, the whole lot of them.

That said, Kudos Phillip!  How about I buy you a busaa or two at my now flooded local to celebrate?  Its flooded because the storm drain hasn’t been cleared in so long its now a garden, thus the runoff flows straight into the shack, forcing us to put our feet up on empty crates as we unwind.  Because I like you, I’ll carry a spare set of gumboots for you, but only because I like you.  Don’t worry about finding the joint, it’s just off the formerly tarmac road your geniuses came and dug up last month, just before the rains, so they could patch up potholes that weren’t really there.  I might be a bit late though, because I’ll be stuck in traffic on Uhuru Highway, this as the traffic cops step in to replace the temperamental lights (those that work once a year) and manage traffic in their own more scientific manner: 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand…  And when you get there, try not to park on what’s left of the road outside, not unless you want to get picked up, for loitering, by your own extortion gang, sorry, ‘security apparatus’, as you stand there fumbling with your door. 

Once inside, we shall sit round a candle and share a story or two, because there shall be no power, because the tree your people said Maish needs a permit to cut down finally fell on a line last week, during the rain storm you see, and Kenya Power (no longer lighting) can’t seem to find the time to get round to sorting me and mine out.  If you do get there before I do, whatever you do, do not order water.  There’s none from the tap, but you already know that, and the bottled one is from a company that only recently received ISO certification, and you know about that too, don’t you?  And whatever you do, don’t tell the barman you’re running for governor, not unless you want to be sodomised with a broom handle in the back room, next to the crates.  Nothing personal you understand, it’s just that you and yours shaft us so often, and so well, that if and when we get the chance to return the favour, well, we just can’t help ourselves. 

I didn’t think I would ever live to say this, but can we please have John back?  Anything is better than this charade of inefficiency.  ISO certified?  Really?

On a unhappier note, it has been prophesied that Kenyans are in for hard times.  No really, there’s a prophetess who has seen the future, and she sees us suffering.  Don’t believe her?  Check out her credentials.  She predicted a big minister would lose his job, to which the journalist said, ‘him, never!’, this when he interviewed said prophetess the first time, a couple of months back.  Then the big man was not just fired but demoted, and now the bugger is all, ‘whoa, deep!’   She predicted the death of two big men, and lo and behold, two geriatric geezers keeled over.  Again the bugger is all, ‘prophetic man!’, this said as he no doubt passed the blunt around.  Then the prophetess says she knows who our next president will be, but she won’t tell us, all she’ll tell us is that he’ll have a difficult race to state house.  Te de de de…  That’s suspense music by the way. 

Now I’m a complete sceptic, but I’m also a devout conspiracy nut, X-files, Fringe, all that sci-fi, stranger than fiction, the truth is out there nonsense is my cup of tea.  I am open to the possibility that some random woman can see the future.  Really.  Just like I am open to the idea of alternate universes, how else do you explain Kalonzo’s conviction that he could actually be my president one day?  That bugger is living in another dimension, his reality and mine are not the same, but that’s a story for another day.  What I am not open to, however, is an idiot journalist writing a half-baked piece of swill, with little to no investigation to back up any of the claims made therein, nothing but, ‘that’s some prophetic shit right there…’  Do you these buggers not go to school to learn this crap?  Is there no quality control in the print media?  Hang on, they’re ISO certified, aren’t they?  Figures.  The moral of the story is, hard times they are a coming.  It has been said, so shall it come to pass.  Or not.  I’m waiting for those ISO bastards to certify this shit first. 

Moving on to even more unhappy matters, the Grevy’s zebra is apparently on the brink of extinction.  It’s not enough that loss of habitat and poaching have conspired to reduce the numbers of the sub-species, its own behaviour may be the final nail in its striped coffin.  ‘How?’ you ask.  Turns out the stallion is ‘territorial and adopts a harem mating system, whereby it does not chase after females but waits for them to be attracted to it, unlike its common cousin.  This means it has difficulties finding mates.’  That’s right folks, rather than go out looking for zebras of his own stripe, he shags whatever comes his way, usually his smaller less striped cousins, who are possibly drawn to his large body (apparently Grevy’s are almost twice as large) and fancy coat (their stripes are thinner and they have a white underbelly, very flash).  So now his kind is about to become extinct, and all because he’s a bit of a whore, a lazy whore at that.  This funga business is an epidemic.

And last but not least, as of May 1st, ‘coffee shops’ in three southern provinces of the Netherlands will begin to implement the ‘weed pass’ law.  It’s not what it sounds like, you will not be required to pass it down.  No, these geniuses have outlawed the selling of weed to foreigners, and they plan to roll out this brilliant scheme to the rest of the country, including Amsterdam, next year.  Apparently, the reason for this most intelligent scheme is to cut down on ‘drug tourists’ (is there any other kind?) from neighbouring countries, basically buggers who drive across the border, stock up, and then go back home.  They don’t mind if you smoke it, they just don’t want you to go smoke it at home see, it’s not like you’re a drug dealer or something, are you?  If you were hoping to one day cross the ocean and sample international blends, go now.

Baby? Not right now, thank you.

Yesterday someone I hadn’t seen in years asked me how my kids are.  ‘How’s that?’ I asked, looking down at my waist to check, perhaps I looked pregnant.  I didn’t.  ‘I heard you have kids,’ he says seriously, ‘don’t you?’  ‘Not that I know of,’ I reply, ‘but I’ve had a couple of wild nights in the past so who knows …’

Quick disclaimer before I go too far, this one is about kids, and seeing as I don’t have any, you know this will be short.  I’ll try to throw in the occasional reference to sex to keep you interested, but I can’t really promise too much, its a bit hard to sex-up a discussion about babies, no?  Not to fear though, next week is sewer week...

The thing about crossing 30 in this town is that everyone assumes you have children, and if you don’t, then you must be dying to.  Fair enough I guess, almost every woman I know is either a mother or longing to become one.  I on the other hand, not so much.  Wait, don’t light the torches yet, put down your pitchforks and let me explain.  I’m a last born, all my life I’ve been the youngest one in the room, but now all of a sudden there’s little versions of my siblings all over and I’m looking at them in curiosity wondering, ‘I wonder what happens if I poke it here?’  Stop laughing, I accidentally said that out loud once and now my mother won’t leave me alone with her grandbabies.  Shame man, can’t she take a joke? 

Apparently all women are hardwired to reproduce, and those of us who aren’t of the same frame of mind are immediately branded freaks, and not in a good way.  When I told the last guy I dated (briefly) that I wasn’t sure I wanted to have kids, he looked at me like I’d just confessed a love for child pornography, then he crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer, this while simultaneously taking a gulp of beer and a hit of smack or whatever shit he was on (he was slightly unstable, I suspected chemicals).  Trust me, when a possible abuser of things illegal crosses himself, things are not looking too good for you.  Now you know.  So now that I’ve been branded a half-woman by those in the know, what am I to do with myself?  Back in campus when I first said I don’t plan to have kids, everyone just chuckled and wrote it off as one of those foolish things I’d say every so often.  Older types would smile patronisingly and tell me that I’d change my mind as I matured, I assumed they were right and so I sat back to wait for my Damascus moment.  27 came and went, nothing.  30 came and went, nothing.  Now approaching a middle age crisis, still nothing.  Ladies and gentlemen, I fear my biological clock is broken.  I am defective.  Oh joy!  Because my life isn’t hard enough already, I now have to worry about not worrying about shit. 

I have to ask, are there others out here like me?  The only women I know who don’t have kids and have made their peace with it are nuns, and they spend all day around other people’s children, running schools and what not.  And not getting laid.  From what I can tell, that’s the only way to get away with this whole no baby thing, because our society places little to no value on women who refuse to reproduce, and unfortunately on those who are unable to as well.  My female friends frown at me when I refuse to change their babies’ diapers, they take it as a personal affront that I have no urge to cradle their screaming child to my bosom.  My male friends stare at me like I’m an alien, devoid of human compassion and what not, the female terminator from T3, only without the red leather jumpsuit.  The men I date don’t believe me, they think I’m trying to trap them with reverse psychology bullshit, either that or they start to stare at my womb suspiciously, like perhaps I’ve had a couple of kids already and now I’m hiding them so as to get them down the aisle as quickly as possible.  My mother refuses to acknowledge it, period, and my father looks at me like he suspects I’m not really his spawn.  Hell, every so often, even I start to wonder what’s wrong with me, why don’t I have this most basic urge?   

A woman’s body is a strange thing.  Once a month it reminds you that all that crap you’re carrying around has a greater purpose, reminding you of your place in the great chain that is mankind.  At its most basic, a woman’s body is the vessel through which all life flows forth, and it will never let you forget it, despite the nonsense we often get up to.  Deliberately not having a baby is like telling your own body, ‘Fuck you, bitch!’, a pointless act seeing as the next month your body will still be there, laughing at you, asking, ‘Who you calling bitch, bitch?’, and constantly trying to get its own way.  It’s a scary thing when you want one thing and your body wants something completely different, it forces you to go to great lengths, up to and including sticking wire-thingis in your womb and wearing plastic to bed, to not achieve the stated purpose of your design.  Did that sound almost religious?  Don’t worry, I’m not about to start quoting creation scripture.  Thing is, I’m a designer by training, an old school designer for that matter, I believe that form should follow function.  Put differently, I believe that only by performing its function well can an object be truly beautiful.  Brilliant theory at work, but its makes it a bit hard to explain the ‘woman without babies’ thing, no?  Question is, by going against the design, am I negating the essence of what I am?

Now I need you appreciate just where I’m coming from here.  When I was in my early 20’s, I thought all the ‘women must have babies talk’ was rubbish, a combination of dodgy biology, sexism and pressure from our mothers.  I was an independent cow who refused to bow to society’s norms.  Then in my late 20’s, when all my female friends started settling down and popping babies out, I realised that biological clock story was no lie, or that it was such a pervasive lie that it had become truth.  Same difference I guess.  At that point it became a case if different strokes and such like, but I was still bucking the trend, still fighting…you guessed it…society’s norms.  For me to sit here and calmly proclaim the essence of a woman is as a baby making machine is not only frightening, it’s slightly absurd.  I’m a bit concerned for myself, I’m starting to sound almost rational.  I’ve always been a stubborn idiot, more inclined to say no before I listen, but with age comes, if not wisdom, at the very least perspective.  I know enough now to know that I don’t know everything, so these days I’ll try to listen first, then say no (rarely yes), but with reasons, sometimes even good reasons. 

Back to the question though, is my choice not to reproduce a rejection of my femininity, or am I simply an aberration from the norm, an outlier?  They say nature will always seek balance, so it stands to reason that for every woman trying to populate the earth with as many babies as possible, there should be another one who doesn’t want to reproduce.  Balance, no?  You’re not buying this shit are you?  Neither did my mother last weekend, but I figure it’s worth a shot, anything to help explain why I’m not living up to my biological potential.  Truth is, I have no idea why I don’t want to have kids.  Maybe it’s that I’ve never felt stable enough to start a family, because family comes with great responsibility, doesn’t it?  Maybe I’ve just never met the right man, seeing as how I’ve always thought if I had to have a child, then I’d have to be married to the child’s father, because no child deserves to have only me taking care of him, that’s would be cruel and unusual punishment.  Maybe I’m a selfish cow who just doesn’t want to grow the fuck up, I suspect that’s my father’s theory, at least that’s what his eyes keep saying.  Or maybe, just maybe, this is how it was meant to be.  Who knows, right?

POSTSCRIPT
For any of you currently going through the ‘must have baby now!’ hunger pangs, read this article The science of baby fever, turns out you’re not crazy, and neither am I. 

This is about nothing in particular...

I sat down this morning with all intention of writing something pithy and thought provoking about the tragic comedy that has become our politics, but now I’m thinking, what for?  We all know how nonsense these politicians have become, and this is going to continue till next year’s elections.  Why not have that discussion around December when I’m on holiday and therefore relaxed (read drunk) enough to talk about these idiots without punching the keys on my keyboard like I’m trying to beat the life out of them (as I am currently doing)? 

That decision now made, I have nothing to talk about today.

I’m looking back at the last few posts and it occurs to me that I’ve been a bit serious lately, no?  Maybe serious isn’t the right word, more melancholic, bittersweet.  The one drawback to doing a post each week is that the blog starts to resemble a journal, tracking the ups and downs of my not very dramatic life, which I guess isn’t a bad thing, makes it more realistic, honest almost.  But it also shows more than I intend to.  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with a bunch of strangers peeking into my head, she says, as she peels back her scalp to expose the sign on her skull saying, ‘Ingia hapa’.  Ah well…  Bora you don’t try to blackmail me, right?  The thing about blogging is it’s a conscious decision, we (and I use this term loosely) write because we want to, or need to.  We have something to say, some wrong we want to make right, some omission we need to correct, a side of ourselves we are desperate to show someone, anyone.  Sometimes I think all we’re doing is looking for kindred spirits, someone who gets what you’re about, or at least pretends to.  On the one hand, we bare our souls and expose ourselves simultaneously to praise and criticism, but on the other hand we bare selectively, kind of like a peep show, I’ll show you the good bits and maybe some of the not so bad bits, maybe. 

Now in as much as I try to be honest with you at all times, I will occasionally spin a story a little to paint myself in a slightly more flattering light.  I definitely won’t come out here and tell you about my deep dark secrets, that would just be foolish, no?  But if by telling a story a certain way, I start to look like some excellent all knowing creature of perfection (not likely, but you never know, no?), then I’m clearly approaching Alistair Campbell like proportions of spin and I need to stop and reality check myself.  This is my attempt at correcting whatever misconceptions, and flat out lies, I may have created over the last six months, and my disclaimer for the next six.

1. I’m impatient, unless I’m waiting for a good thing, then I’m ridiculously impatient.
2. I have flat feet, at least that’s what my mother always says, but I suspect that’s just her way of trying to make me feel better about my abnormally shaped feet.  I guess I should have said I have abnormally shaped feet…
3. I suspect I swear more than I should, but who the fuck cares right?
4. I have two warts, thankfully not on my face.
5. I hate being told what to do, even though most days I need a bit of help, or direction.
6. I have 10 hairs and counting on four spots on my chin.  Don’t freak out, I pluck the bastards, it’s not like I have a goatee or anything, although the way things are going, I might have soon, who knows?  Slight detour, when they said drinking that moonshine shit woud put hairs on my chest, this was not what I expected...
7. I have a very short fuse, I’ve done some damage speaking in anger so these days I try to bite my tongue and walk away.  Fail most times, but still I try.
8. I may have, occasionally, in the (not so) distant past, partaken of some pornography.  Just a little.  Hang on, that’s a good thing no?
9. I can be unforgiving, and I hold on to shit far longer than I should.  Doesn’t help that I seldom forget…
10. I love politicians...
11. I have no qualms telling a lie or two.

My name is (not) Alex and I have very many issues. 

Thank you all for keeping me company over the last six months, taking time out of your busy lives to laugh at mine.  Special thanks to the two lovely strangers in California(?) and Germany who’ve been coming back here since November, I don’t know how you found me, at this point I don’t care, I’m just glad you did.  If I knew who you are, I would mail you cards and shit.  No money though, I’m quite cheap.  Plus I suspect the other, more vocal, regulars would revolt.

Have a good week folks, I’m off to (not) read the paper.

How (not) to funga a mama (and by mama I mean not a spring chicken...)!

Thank you all for indulging me last week as I ruminated, some would say endlessly, on matters not relationship/sex/dating.  For your generosity of spirit, and time, I shall now reward you with a suitably foolish tale of (almost) lust and (not great) misfortune.  Yes folks, I bring you yet another foolish tale of foolish men.

Last Thursday night, tired and frustrated with work, I dragged myself down to the local for a drink, or four, with Mkubwa, proprietor extraordinaire of said lovely establishment.  I trudged into the bar at around 10.00 pm to find it half full, with a few groups clustered around several tables and the odd couple here and there, trying to get romantic(?) despite the blaring music.  Mkubwa was in the back, finishing up paperwork or something such like, so I happily plonked myself at the counter to wait, catching up with the barman in the process.  There I am, sitting at the counter, empty seats on either side of me, a group of three to my far left (two guys and a girl) and a pilsner bottle to my right.  Yes, a bottle, half empty (or half full if you’re an optimistic drunk), owner of said bottle nowhere in sight, but somewhere on the premises the barman tells me. 

In due course, the bottle owner shows up to top up his glass, this as he shouts over my head to one of the jamaas in the far left group, who then shouts back and a conversation ensues, over my head.  Now I’m slow, but I’m not that slow.  In theory, a man shouting over your head is the cue to look up, smile fetchingly and invite him to include you in said conversation, no?  Thing is, I was tired and not particularly interested in talking to a stranger, definitely not a loud stranger, so I kept my head down and lengad.  After a minute or two the overhead conversation ended and bottle owner wandered off, bottle left on the counter, again.  A couple of minutes later, bottle owner returns, tops up his drink again, this time shouting to his pal sitting at a nearby table.  He moves off to join this guy and his girl, but only for a couple of minutes and then he’s back beside me, and this time he sits down and proceeds to stare, either at me or at the barman who is busy making a fancy cocktail, all shaking this and pouring that.  The reason I’m not sure is we were both in his line of sight, and these days you assume nothing, no? 

Drink complete and dispatched, I start asking the barman questions.  What was that you were making?  What’s the blue stuff?  And that stuff in the odd looking bottle with no label?  He gives me said bottle to inspect, and sniff, bottle owner sees a gap, and quickly pounces.  “What’s that?” he asks me, and I hold out the bottle to him so he can read the tiny label on the neck of the bottle.  “Is this what you’re having?” he asks, glancing down at my glass.  My drink was amber coloured, stuff in bottle is clear.  For a second, I contemplate a smartass reply.  “No,” I reply, “I don’t trust anything that has a label I can’t read.”  “Ha ha ha!” he laughs, “Kweli.  Inakaa cham hiyo drinks…” 

Eh?  Hiyo drinks?  Really?  Sweet Jesus!

I smiled briefly at his cham line and turned away, having written him off as an unserious individual.  (What?  There’s a time and place for ‘hiyo drinks’ type geniuses, but that wasn’t one of them, trust me.)  Cue silence.  A few minutes later he laughs and says to me, “You should just go the barber and tell him to cut it all off.”  “What?” I ask, confused, his sudden words dragging me away out of my reverie.  “Instead of trying to pull it out,” he points at my hand tangled in my hair, “just go the barber and tell him to cut it all off.  It will be faster and less painful.”  I laughed, a real laugh, pleasantly surprised.  He continued, “just go the barber, sit down like this,” he turns and sits up straight, facing the counter, “look at him like this,” he says, stern but comical look on his face, “tell him, ‘Boss!’” he turns to me and smiles cheekily, then turns back and puts sura ya kazi back on, “Say it again, ‘Boss!’, you have to say it twice so he knows you’re serious…”  Laughing, I ask, “Twice?”  “Always twice…” he replied, laughing as well. 

And so began a half hour or so of easy conversation spanning Christianity and atheism, ‘his boys’, men with no balls, bar fights, the guy on the adjacent table who was really struggling with the girl he was trying to confuse (poor bastard was going down like a lead pipe in a shallow pond, only faster).  It was a rambling conversation, sometimes funny, with flashes of clever, but for the most part vague.  As we were talking, he made a couple of references to campus, so I asked what he does and he ducked.  Later he said something about being younger than the rest of his crowd and I asked how old he was.  He ducked again.  I looked at him for a couple of seconds and realised I didn’t really have the energy, or the interest, to push the issue.  The conversation went on a bit longer, until Mkubwa finally pitched up to put me out of my (not so great) misery, bottle owner looking him up and down as if to ask, ‘Is this it?’, an incident that would be irrelevant save for the fact that Mkubwa is so named because he is not a small man, and bottle guy was, if only by comparison, a small man.  Feigning nonchalance, he mumbled something along the lines of, “I saw him here earlier, does he work here?” to which I replied, “You could say that.”  I figured there was no sense bursting his bubble and all. 

As Mkubwa was pulling a stool to join us, he paused to greet the guy who’d, a few minutes earlier, taken the empty seat to my left, yet another pal of bottle owner.  Turned out, Mkubwa knew this dude pretty well and they began chatting, and then we began chatting, new dude and I.  Listen closely, this is where it gets interesting.  New dude had struck me as a bit of an odd duck sitting there quietly by himself, when he first sat down all he did was say a quick wassup to bottle guy and then proceeded to do internet stuff on his phone (Galaxy S yawa!  But do I say...), so of course I’m curious, what’s his story?  Talking to him, he immediately impressed me by not bullshitting my ass.  In the five minutes we spoke, he told me his name, his profession as well (accompanied by a business card), his age, then his current relationship status (baby mama drama, not good) and his preference in TV series, just in case I was wondering.  And be knowing, he’s taking my info as well, in that same 5 minutes.  This bugger was a bloody professional, a serial funga-rer if ever I met one.  I almost gave him a standing ovation, is how smooth he was.  If it wasn’t for Mkubwa’s presence, I suspect I would have been derailed by new dude, quick fast and in a hurry, and not just because he was (acting like) the shit (flash bastard), but also out of sheer relief.  Finally, a man who knew what exactly he wanted and wasn’t beating around the bush trying to get it.  It was bloody brilliant! 

Which brings me to the point of this long winded saga.  Gentlemen, if you meet a woman at a bar, at the counter no less; and she looks like a mama, as in not spring chicken, as in is fully clothed, with a ka-fulana to boot; and she’s drinking yellow shit that comes from a green bottle, and its not beer; and she knows the barman, by name; gentlemen, you might need to rethink your game plan.  This is not the mama you want to impress with how many beers you can drink or how many bar fights you’ve won.  She will not be impressed by your mastery of the hustle and implied street cred that comes with it.  And she will definitely not be impressed by your silly attempts at being mysterious.  Gents, the only men who hide their age and/or careers, are boys, and boys aren’t allowed to sit at the counter, or at least they shouldn’t be.  Thing is, by the time a mama is sitting up at a counter by herself in her local, she’s earned her stripes, so if nothing else, please, don’t hit on her like she’s a campus student looking for a free sambuca, not unless you’re looking to get bitch slapped.  Useless idiot being coy and shit, what the fuck?  Next thing you know an idiot will be asking me to hold his purse when he goes for a tinkle. 

As you have no doubt picked up by now, I’m slightly bothered by this nonsense.

Gentlemen, I understand that sometimes, actually most times, it’s hard to approach a woman, half the time you’re wondering what the hell to say to not look like an idiot, the rest of the time you’re worried she’ll think your dick is too small, literally or metaphorically.  Relax, we’re just as worried as you are.  As you’re fumbling with your lines, she’s fumbling in her head, debating whether she looks good enough, should she come on to you or will you think her too forward, should she have another drink or will you think she’s a bit of a lush, when was the last time she shaved her legs, and other.  She’s freaking out too, is all I’m saying, so your job is simply to put her at ease.  That’s it.  Really.  Make her laugh, flirt a little, or a lot (if you’re sure you can back it up), tell her a bit about yourself, then ask her about herself, and then tell her more, and ask her more… Most important thing, though, is to lay your cards on the table, up front.  I guarantee you, the mama will be suitably impressed (or repulsed, but at least you won’t have wasted precious time and money trying to seduce her ass, no?).  Then before you know it, it’s one in the morning, you're having the conversation and she’s giving you the look.  No, not the ‘lakini, you’re a bit smelly’ look, the other one, the ‘I want to lick whipped cream off your chest’ look.  

Why are you staring at me blankly?  You don’t know the look?  You just shook your head, didn’t you?  Okay then, for the clueless ones amongst us, and that might include me, if this blog is anything to go by (that’s my disclaimer by the way), let me make it even simpler for you. 

Gentlemen, if at no point does she touch you; no fingers brushing yours, or a light touch on the shoulder, or a warm sweaty palm on your thigh, sorry, I mean arm, a palm on your arm; if there is absolutely no contact, then she is not feeling you, at all.  Really.  If she doesn’t try to grab you within an hour of flashing her with your big smile, or wallet, then she’s either too sober, or you’re not what she’s looking for.  Stop wasting your time and go try your luck elsewhere, with any luck it will be late enough that you won’t have to work too hard to funga a desperate one at that hour, no?  Don’t look so offended, it’s true, any mama picked up after 2 in the morning can only be looking for one thing and one thing only, and it’s not your (not) brilliant mind.  Good news is, if she does violate your personal space, say a quick prayer of thanks to your gods for their kind mercies my friend, because that means she wants to violate you.  Play your cards right and that mama might even funga your ass.  That’s much more fun, right?  Cheaper too.

Do men really care if you...

Wear makeup?

Only if you look like the back of a bus.  Provided your facial features are in the right place, roughly, they couldn’t care less if you’re wearing Revlon Berry with matching eye shadow, or Vaseline.

Wear perfume?

Only if you’re wearing the cheap stuff that’s designed to fumigate an entire building.  Yes, they want you to smell good, but their definition of good is… not bad.  Bora you’ve had a shower recently, you’re fine.  If you have to, then wear the real stuff, sparingly, he will still be able to smell you, I promise.

Wear high heels?

Only if he’s a midget.  The rest of these buggers look at manolos and think ‘blah!’.  And just so you know, any jamaa who comments on your shoes is batting for the other side, really.

Dress up all the time?

Yes.  Don’t believe him when he says he likes the simple look, to him that means looking like you’ve just stepped out of a magazine, but only took 2 minutes to do so.  Impossible?  Of course, deal with it.

Wear a mini skirt?

Only if he has a pulse.  And you have nice legs, with no suspicious scars, or hair.  If your legs look like you’ve spent many hours by an open fire, spare yourself the disappointment and cover them up.

Wear tight jeans?

Yes.  But only if you have a nice ass, and let’s face it, in the right pair of jeans, all asses are nice asses, look at white women.

Wear a low cut top?

Yes.  But only if you have a nice boobs, and let’s face it, in the right bra, all boobs are nice boobs, no?  Lift and separate ladies, lift and separate…

Wear a weave, or a wig?

Only if you look like you’re wearing a weave, or a wig.  If it looks real, then no one ever has to know otherwise, especially not your girls, those jealous cows will sell you out.

Wear dreadlocks?

Only if they look like Dedan Kimathi’s, and you have a random twig/tree sticking out of your mouth, and a disturbingly close relationship with the po-po…

Have very short natural hair?

Only if you’re sporting well developed biceps as well, and have a fondness for getting into a loose brawl every so often.

Have a natural afro?

Only if it looks like Dedan Kimathi’s, before the dreads.  If it looks like something they should never ever touch for fear of losing a digit, or an entire hand, comb that shit out.

Smoke?

Only if you’re puffing on what looks like an illegal substance.  And even then, it depends on the man, no?  I’m just saying, there are a couple of guys I know who are quite happy to have a woman who can provide…

Drink beer from a bottle bigger than theirs?

Only if the table is covered in many more of said bottle, and they’re all yours.

Drink expensive shit?

Only when they’re buying, then you will be written off as a high maintenance, pretentious user.

Don’t drink?

Only when you’re buying, seeing as how you’ll only buy them tea and shit.  Of what use is that to them, woman?

Listen when they talk?

Yes.  They like to think they are very engaging.

Don’t care for what they’re talking about?

No.  They often are not paying attention to you, seeing as how they’re so engaged, with themselves.

Still look suitably impressed by his big...brain?

Yes.

Have a brain yourself?

No.