When one of those ladies send you a message to find out how you are doing, just respond ‘I am good’ and leave it there. Make no mistake of asking: ‘How about you or hope you are doing well too, o?’. That is when you get to open the pandora box for the ‘problems outline’. Don’t worry if she thinks you are not caring by not asking: ‘I am good, how about you or hope you are doing fine too’! It is an indirect invitation to treat! We know the tricks of some of them o, yoo!

Some of them are not smart koraaa o; they simply don’t know that nothing kills a man’s ‘elections’ faster than when they start telling the guy so many ‘negative things’ even before the ‘tender process’ begins after just common ‘Expression of Interest (EOI)’. ‘My phone screen is cracked; I can’t chat you up until I fix it’. ‘My phone battery is spoilt so I am even talking to you now using my Mum’s phone with my chip in it’! ‘I will be attending a funeral this weekend and I need to do my nails’. They may not tell you directly o, but they expect you to reason up! Hmmm!

Me, Zogbenu? At this point, I will ‘shrink’ down there no matter how ‘pumped’ you the lady may be at the front or at the back! The next line of action is to make sure I block you. After all, it is because of some of these unwarranted harassments that phone manufacturers put a feature like ‘Block Contact’ on phones.

At least wait small for me to commit myself by first ‘torching’ the thing before asking but payment before service?…It’s even more amazing how some of the vulnerable ones are easily carried away by mobile phones. Some of them don’t have mattresses to sleep on o but their priorities are phones.

It is one of the reasons there is probably nothing more hypertensive than a side Chic who will not call you during the day around 4pm to 6pm but chooses to call you Monday morning or 10pm! This apply mostly to the attention-seeking and mommo-conscious ones. It can be so so annoying er! There is another category that will choose to call to just say ‘Hello’ on Monday.

Saturday and Sunday are there but they won’t call o. I almost said I have some who are usually relaxed when they call with unnecessary gimmicks: ‘Ei so you dey and you have refused to check on me’, ‘So now that the money has come, you have forgotten about me’. Why not call the Central Bank Ogah to tell him these things? Me?

My money has come? From where? I see! So I should be spreading my manageable income so that when I go on retirement, I become a pauper and the same people will start making mockery of me that after having worked for so many years, even foko, I couldn’t do and now see how me and my family are suffering’. Be wise o, men. This side chic industry is such a stressful one o but as men, excluding me, sometimes, we keep going after them. What is wrong with us koraaa han? Ah!

The tithe we refuse to pay, go to some of our gers o. Come to think of it, should we calculate the 10% of the Malachi 3:3 before we think about those whose phone screens are cracked or we fix the cracked phone screens before the tithes are paid? Just asking o.

My wife said she wanted a househelp though I have personally not been comfortable with that. She needed help so I kind of gave in but on one condition – let me be the one to do the recruitment! She didn’t have a problem. I am not a fan of the househelp concept because of some of the many stories I hear about them. That some have evil eyes, they can assault your children, they can quit the job without telling you and some to the extent of absconding with some of your belongings.

Often the idea of using a nephew or niece also comes up for discussions but this is another dangerous one. When your wife changes her cloth, niece or nephew will go and do konkonsa to your siblings that ‘your wife has jujued you and because of that you are spending too much on her and ignoring the external family’. They often do this forgetting that your wife may be a working person too and can afford some of the luxuries of life by herself. Africa…Africa….Africa yeeei! We have a problem o!

Yeso, have you observed that anytime one problem rears its ugly head, an old lingering problem gets solved somehow? Having gone round parts of the country in recent times, I have observed something. In spite of COVID 19, it looks like there could be bumper harvest this year o, if that is not happening already. Everywhere I passed, all crops seem to be blossoming very well. Talk of maize, cassava, cocoa, yam, cocoa, mangoes (apart from the local ones), name them. The rains have been consistently balanced for crops to thrive well.

Meanwhile the climate uncertainties in the past couple of years were responsible for crops not yielding very well, but now see, COVID has come to change it. Even the fall army worms wahala was not visible so I have personally concluded that they may have been killed by C19. As soon as Coro come norrrr, crops appear to me to be doing well as the rains keep coming in measured volumes and intervals necessary for crop survival. Clap for God er. Kpa kpa kpakpakpa kpaaaaa!

I can imagine how nice 2020 would have been without C19 and with bumper harvest! But you see, life can never be without a problem. As soon as one problem gets solved another one will come, no matter what. ‘The weather is hot, let there be rains. The rains come and the weather becomes cold and you pray for the sun to heat you up a bit again!

Has there ever been a time in your life when you said to yourself: ‘Thank God all my problems are solved”? I just love it when my little kids are singing alongside the song “Obiara wor problem” when being played especially on TV. Even children have a problem. They are tired of being at home without school and that is a problem or?

Everyone has a problem o.

Ooooh, you just made me forget what I’d wanted to say la. Ehern, as I was saying so I went to recruit a househelp for my wife to assist with household chores as the pressure on my mother-in-law’s daughter is great including being a career woman.

The girl was ok, nineteen years of age and has everything needed for ‘piece meal’ any time Madam travels. She started work on day one and was very good. She wore long dresses and my wife felt comfortable. By the end of the first week, Alla! This girl was creating problems in my groin. I was controlling myself but the control would simply not control. She would wear skimpy short dresses and top that would expose her these things.

Our bedroom was such that no third party is allowed to enter because it is the headquarters of enjoyment and procreation even though our counsellor advised us to change locations once in a while.

We tried it on a gas cylinder in the kitchen before and we almost put the house on fire!

So this girl wanted to go a clean the ‘non-existent’ cobwebs in our bedroom wearing some see-through skirt bi! It was on a Sunday and my wife was preparing to go to church and I decided to have some rest by staying at home. Househelp too dey house wanting to clean cobwebs in bedroom. Hehehe! If soup does not pour on fufu, fufu was likely to fall into soup!

That was when my mother-in-law’s daughter said ‘NO’; it’s either we go to church together or that girl with voluptuous these things gets sacked.

Up till now, she has still not told me what she was scared of oo! Hahaaaa!

We sacked her but being the head of the recruitment for a househelp, I knew where to find her and what can come, came! My only wahala now is that I have exhausted all the money in my phone wallet because her father is seriously ill and the medications I have to buy er, face masks inclusive. Sin indeed fascinates and assassinates!

Lord God have mercy on us o, men. Our wives, please pray for us so we don’t bring you disease wai!  

Have the best of the weekend and remember: ‘If it does not open, it is not your door’! Stay masked!