Roses Are Red. So Are My Eyes

Everywhere is turning red again. Yes, all the stores and street
are littered with redness. Different shades of it. Even the snow
on my street is red. Oh, I forgot it is February, the month of
love. And it is almost the 14th also, when we men are expected
to take a second mortgage or ask our supervisor for extra hours
of overtime, so we could go to Victoria’s Secret or the hottest
chocolate factory in town and try to outdo what we did last
year.

This year I am not falling on no love banana peel (don’t get me
wrong, I am in love. That is not the point here.) The issue is
that I am just tired of been juggled around by the commercialism
of the American society. Why does every month have to have a
holiday that extracts money from me like a root canal? Do I get
a raise from my job every month? Do you know how rich I would be
if I were to get a bump in my salary every Christmas, Kwanza,
New Year Day, President’s Day, Chinese New year and Valentine’s
day? Oh if you don’t know, Easter is peeking through your
cracked door. You are expected to buy eggs and paint them like
some crazy woman at Ekpoma market.

Anyway, like I said before, I am not buying into the hypocrisy
of Valentine this year (the last time I checked, Valentine
spending has not reduced the divorce rate in this country).
I have my own cost effective plans this year. I have a reply
hanging tremulously on my lips to every question that will come
my way. I can already imagine my Valentine eve will go thus:

“Honey, do you have any plans for us?”

“Yes, sweetheart. I just renewed our family health insurance
plan; the co-pay is now $50. I have also bumped our dental plans
from chewing sticks to tooth brush, and a caveat of Listerine mouth wash”

“That is not what I mean. I mean do you have plans for us
tomorrow.”

“Oh you got me there. Yes, I think the Lakers are playing the
Pistons, you can watch with me if you like. Can you believe Kobi
and Shaq are now buddies? These Americans really know how to
take us for a ride”

“Will you f%$# stop.”

“Wo wo woman, this is the house that love built, let’s not allow
hostility to come knocking us off our high chairs.”

“Then stop dodging the question”

“Then you should go straight to the point!”

“What are your plans for me on Valentine’s day?”

“Aha, now you are talking. Well I have given you an eternal gift
honey, and I love you everyday for that”

“What gift is that?”

“Have you been to the grocery store lately. Do you know how much
spare ribs cost? And those are even from cow. I gave you my rib
for free in the Garden of Eden”

“Are you drunk or something?”

“Yes, sweetheart I am drunk with your love.”

“Anyway I know you are kidding, let me go make the bed in the
guest room, someone might be needing it soon.”

Ladies and gentlemen, if you thought Iran knows how to threaten
the Western world with uranium, then you haven’t met my
Ayatollah.

Now if you are a man reading this and you hate the coldness of
the guest room, or the pricking jute material of your
couch, please get your butt of that seat and head straight to the
nearest Victoria’s Secret, they have sales going on.
When you get to Victoria’s Secret, be honest with the sales girl.
(If you find a sales boy, please stay clear he can’t help you.)
Tell the sales girl to show you the XL or XXL section. She will
understand right away that you are a married man, and you have
got your hands full with a super size sweet mama. Be warned, you
might find it difficult finding the size that will fit. Even the
draws that have XXL are deceptively small, so make sure you
raise it up and imagine its destination before paying for it.
Don’t touch anything that is on a silk-padded hanger, head for
the hamper. That is where the sale is. There is a big
laundry-like hamper at the corner to your right hand, there you
will find extra large panties, made from jute and modeled by
Star Jones (Tyra Banks is on the silk-padded hanger and your
woman ain’t Tyra Banks). Peradventure you don’t find anything
you can afford at Victoria’s Secret, just ask the sales girl for
their gift boxes or little pinkish shopping bag and head
straight to Wal-Mart. Please before you stuff Wal-Mart lingerie
in a Victoria’s Secret shopping bag, remember to carefully remove
the labels with your teeth. By the time your woman find out your
heinous crime, your kids would be ready for college, and it
wouldn’t matter if you slept in the market square or the guest
room.

Cards
Be creative and buy a pack of blank cards, ten for the price of
one, it serves every season. Since it is Valentine, let me
jumpstart you with words like:

“No one else can say how I feel towards you because a man bitten
by a snake shouts for himself and for the snake. I love you more
than Hallmark can ever help me express.”

Something like that.

Candles
Don’t waste your money buying candles. Did your son or daughter
not just celebrate his/her birthday? Go through the gift bags
and get one of the candles, and if it is not red, get red ink and
paint the sucker to red. As for me, I have a phobia for candles
and my woman is aware of this. As a village boy I used candles to
read through my secondary school all the way to university. Also
when I was getting baptized at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Irrua
Diocese, the priest made me hold a burning candle and the sucker
melted on my hand and gave me a Brazilian wax. (Oh, that is an
idea, why not give that your nagging babe a gift certificate to
a Korean Spa where non of the workers speak English, so she can
get waxed real good?)

Anyway, as I was saying, I hate candles. I prefer dimmed
chandelier, I am already paying electric bills for that, so why not
use it.

Flowers
There is no other name to call a bouquet of roses but a fraud.
Do you know how much Safeway sells a dozen roses whose stems
would soon bow their heads like an executed Dimka? Let’s just say
the price is enough to send a student to Auchi Polytechnic for
OND. Why not get plastic roses and recycle them year after year
like I do? Some look very real. They even have real-looking (let’s
avoid the word “fake” here) water drops. Sprinkle some small
sweet smelling sosorobia on the petals, and you are good to go.
You can get away with it. Just make sure for the next seven days
after Valentine you are the one cleaning and rearranging the
house s

o she doesn’t have to touch the hard and stiff roses. Or
better still, just go across to your neighbor’s potted plant and
harvest some of her roses. She is not going to eat them anyway.

Chocolate
If you are thinking of buying chocolate for her, just remember
that the chocolate you gave her last year was what sent you to
the XL and XXL section of Victoria’s Secret. Do I need to
elaborate? But if you must, here are some samples you should try
according to your woman’s disposition:
If your woman is sneaky, give her SNICKERS
If she is cute and lovely, give her BABE RUTH
If she just had a baby, try MILKY WAYS
If she is the witch-looking type, give her KIT KAT
If she is the type that work you real good, give her TWIX
If she is the adventurous type…send her MARS
If she thinks she is a diva, load her up with GODIVA
If she is the kind that nags you to death, HERSHEY her up!

Dinner
I don’t know about you, but I am not letting anyone drag me to a
restaurant where I have to wait for hours in a cold weather. If
we cant go to Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King or the
almighty McDonalds, then we should stay at home and eat pounded
yam as usual. My pounded yam diet has made my cholesterol drop
like Google stocks. If you ask me, nothing is more eclectic and
romantic than a steaming bowl of pure white pounded yam, with a
side attraction of a colorful plate of Ewedu/Spinach soup where
showboy, kpomo, okporoko, brorkortor, obasanjo chicken, towel,
honeycomb, ox tail, bonga fish, and mushrooms are juggling for
position like American football players. Now, to make sure this
pounded yam has a smooth sailing to your already garri-sack
looking stomach, follow it up with that performance enhancing
liquid call Guinness Big Stout. If you have Gulder to top it
off, then the gods are not to blame when you start mixing the
music of Osadebey, King Sunny Ade and Dan Maraya Jos!

Final Act: Bedroom
If you went through the whole shenanighan of buying blank cards,
fake flower, birthday candles for valentine, fattening
chocolate, cheap-ass dinner and you forgot to buy Tylenol, Extra
Strength Advil or Paracetamol, then your case is the most
pitiable my brother. Didn’t your mama tell you that bedroom is
the number one headache inducing environment for a dissatisfied
woman?

Good freaking night!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!