‘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.
READ ALSO: INTIMATE AFFAIRS: Unwise sacrifices, by Funke Egbemode
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.
So, did the condom break or Yemi put a hole in it to give little Gboyes access to the waiting fertile land? Did Gboyega get sloppy and he went swimming without his sheath? There’s no point asking Yemi to get rid of the little girls growing inside her. She wants them too badly and Gboye knows. We all do. Yemi would trade anything, anybody, including Gboyega, their father, for the two lives growing inside her, for motherhood at last.
Of course, Tutu, the Madam of the Manor did not believe the ‘my-condom-broke’ story. And the little additions to the family will arrive soon. It does look right now that Gboyega and Yemi are over but if a man and a woman have two children between them, I doubt if they can truly be over. You see Madam’s local trouble?
When a man is playing on an unregistered pitch, he prefers not to score at all. He loves firing his shots. He loves the applause, the cheers. It’s called a man’s prowess. He enjoys the game, the exercise, the sweat dripping down his back. It’s a strenuous but satisfying, chest-thumbing exercise. But scoring? Nah. That is reserved for the registered pitch, with his co-player or players who are holding the licence to his balls at home.
But we all know that God has his ways and they are different from those of a man playing on an ‘away pitch’. God has all the home advantage and He deploys it when He wills. So, God may allow a man to freely bounce his balls around the goal post and not score for a full year and then one day, in one minute, he kicks softly, playfully and he scores. Indeed, some men have been known to fire one innocuous shot and get three balls in the net. God is good that way. He’s the all-sufficient God and He does not ask for registration details of your pitch before approving your goals and scores.
So, is this some amateur football commentary? You know it is not.
This is about a man’s extra-curricular activities and the consequences and repercussions of the shots he fires outside his committed relationship. Of course, except in rare cases, a man having an affair prefers to come and go smoothly. He’s careful about his protection. He buys them discreetly and wears them before diving into the pool. But not all the time. Passion makes a man forget things. I once wrote that when a man’s fly is open, his brain falls out. A mischievous reader has since asked me what falls out when a woman gets out of her panties. I’m still researching that.
Back to the unregistered pitch.
So, why do condoms break or why do people break condoms? Or how else do those wriggly little things swim into safe warm ovens? Have you also noticed that babies made this way always arrive holding their DNA certificates? Like bearing the one birthmark their fathers and grandfathers have in a discreet place right on their baby chins or the back of their hands. Yeah.
Then there are the times when an unscrupulous girlfriend turns a broken protection into an ATM. Shouldn’t a man know if he’s protection has leaked a few little ones? Methinks he should, which is why I don’t know why a man’s going to fall for that old lying line again: ‘Babe, the condom broke and the doctor just confirmed that I’m pregnant.’ Oh pleaseeee. I think a good girl should take care of any unwanted wandering Junior swimming through the fence before he settles down in her oven. Following that announcement with blackmail and extortion is so dirty and mean. I promise to tell you how a friend of mine met his blackmailing babe halfway and the counter offer that saw her leaving town without a forwarding address.
Guys, may I close this sermon with this: if you need the gadget, buy a fit and proper one otherwise, double it. You may as well keep a close eye on your treasure bags. Don’t let anything escape and if they mistakenly do, go after them before you become a bewildered director in a two-women cast drama about a broken condom.
Egbemode, (egbemode3@gmail.com), a top Nigerian journalist, was president, Nigerian Guild of Editors
