Dear future kid(s), if you’re reading this then it means my wooing tactics worked.
I already told you all about how we met, but there’s so much more.
Nearly losing my toe during our first encounter was actually a blessing in disguise as it led to a very lengthy conversation.
She was tending to my wound. My big toe was now the size of those lollipops za 20 bob, with at least 3/4s of its nail now donning a new shade of black.
Anyway, I let out a few shrieks here and there that I’m not proud of.
Her hands had a velvety feel to them, pretty strange for a mechanic, right?
Turns out that she actually pursued medicine and dropped out in her final year to ‘pursue my own dream’ as she put it.
If you are reading this while in college, please….do not get some sort of light bulb moment.
“Medicine was my parent’s dream. I enjoyed it. I was pretty good at it, but it just didn’t feel right,” she said.
“Ouuuch!” I let out another shriek.
“You’re such a baby,”
“We thank God you dropped out of med school, it clearly wasn’t for you,”
“OUUUUUCH,” I had now graduated to a full scream.
I’m guessing she found my joke a bit distasteful, coz she squeezed on my lollipop of toe so hard I almost passed out.
And just like that, a friendship that would hopefully last for a lifetime had taken off.
If she hadn’t insisted on using that Coop Pay By Link thing, I am almost certain we’d have never met.
Funny how something so seemingly insignificant turned out to be so important.
Anyway, the following weekend was my turn to show off to the boys.
We have this age-old ritual of always meeting up on Saturday at Uncle Eric’s lounge in Buru Buru.
The teasing started the moment I walked out or rather limped out of my Uber.
My foot looked like it had been through both the Iraq and Afghan war.
The crazy bunch of people I called friends were seated on ‘our’ terrace. It had been ours for over a decade and Uncle Eric even went as far as making a permanent reservation.
The six seats plus two wooden tables that had this antique look were never to be used by anyone else.
I slowly made my way across the street, ignoring all the honking and hooting.
That was what caught the attention of my goons and as soon as they turned and caught sight of the limping man, the laughing started.
I was prepared for the hazing.
I took a seat right next to Kama’s egg/smokie trolley.
Kama’s mayai gonga is the stuff of legend. We used to call him jogoo but he soon made it clear that he didn’t like it.
I'll tell you all about it some other day.
Anyway, to divert attention away from my injuries, I engaged Kama.
“Nigongee mbili na pia smokie kwa zile bun zako za majuu”
He just shook his head, he was used to the teasing as well.
I was not letting him off so easily.
“Naeza lipa na Pay By Link?” I asked.
“I only use that for online orders,” he said.
I was genuinely shook.
“Ulianza online deliveries when?”
“Oneni huyu. He thought Pay By Link would throw me off haha,”
“I can tell umejua hii kitu juzi juzi,” he added.
“What’s her name,” my good friend Tito interjected.
We used to call him the group’s FBI agent. Nothing, and I mean nothing got past him.
“Acha kulenga. What’s her name,” he asked again.
“Whose name?”
“The girl who taught you hii maneno ya Pay By Link,”
“We both know that wewe na technology ni mafuta na maji,” he added.
This was going to be a long Saturday afternoon.
As if that wasn’t enough, your mum just happened to be a fan of Kama’s legendary mayai gonga.
As I made my way to the stand in a bid to escape Tito’s grilling, there she was, again.
This time in her flowery sundress that almost cured my limp.
“Are you stalking me,” she asked the moment she saw me. She beat me to it by a fraction of a second coz that was also going to be my opening line.
Damn it...I muttered to myself.
“Bado unataka kulipa na Pay By Link,” Kama asked while trying his hardest not to laugh.
It was going to be a really, really, really, long Saturday afternoon.