‘Babe, I Swear, The Condom Broke…’ – By Funke Egbemode
A man ‘firing’ his mistress or girlfriend is not on a mission to reap bountiful harvests. All he wants to do is sow impressively and give a good account of himself. He loves the hunt. He loves the moans, groans and his woman’s vigorous vote of confidence after every play. But babies? Nothing like the announcement of a pregnant mistress to kill a man’s vibes. His third leg simply goes limp. The cowardly thing always recoils into a harmless shape at the sign of such trouble. One minute it’s a tough-looking stern and straight entity and the next it becomes a I-cannot-hurt-a-fly innocent-looking small thing. You definitely know what I’m describing.
That’s the story of Gboye and Yemi. Gboye is your regular Lagos guy. He loves the life. He’s good looking and likes to appreciate women the way they ought to be appreciated. His words, not mine. As far as he’s concerned, there are not enough men to go round and his making a few women happy is his way of being the salt of the earth. I used to pray for him regularly that God would forgive at least some of his sins because of the number of hearts he’d left broken after ‘salting and seasoning’ them. These days he has started praying for himself. His soft kick has earned him a big knock. What he thought was a harmless, friendly fire has ballooned into a fiery furnace, scorching his marriage. My friend who never failed to wear his boots whenever he was playing outside his registered pitch has scored an unintended goal. His condom broke and his swimmers made it to the finishing line, and now ‘we’ are expecting twin girls.
When a man presumes he’s firing blanks and his girlfriend, out of the blues, announces that ‘we are pregnant’, what follows is a matter for a full book, I think. That is what happened with Gboye and Yemi. They have been dating hotly and bigly for close to two years now. But Gboye is married and Yemi is 37, single and without a child. The two have something really great between them but marriage was not on the cards. Of course, Yemi would not mind terribly if Gboye wanted a second wife. She just had surgery to remove fibroids and her doctor advised that she should not leave her womb fallow for long lest the fibroids grow back again. In other words, get pregnant as quickly as you can. And Gboye was the only one cultivating her land. He never forgets his protection too. I do not know what Yemi did or what Gboye forgot to do but Yemi is pregnant, very pregnant. Indeed with a set of twin girls. Gboye is livid. Yemi is beside herself with joy though she cannot dance openly. Her doctor is excited. Tutu, Gboye’s wife is threatening fire and brimstone.
How could you do this to me, to the children, Gboyega?
What did I do wrong?
What have I not given you?
You went and had unprotected sex!!??
All Gboye could manage was, ‘Babe, I swear, the condom broke…’
Don’t scream. Tutu already took care of the screaming part. She threw other things apart from one massive tantrum. Everywhere is an uproar, of different shades, depending on whether it is in Gboye’s home or Yemi’s caucus.
