How to Ruin a Sunday in the Pad

There is a particular way I like to spend my Sundays. I want to walk into the pad at around 5 am, with jelly legs and a head spinning from whiskey shots chased with half a dozen Tuskers while cacophonous Caribbean music was playing. I want to throw myself onto the bed, shove away the pillows and pass out in beer soaked clothes. It’s nice to wake up just as the alcohol is wearing off, that amazing feeling of having blood back in your system  and smelling the breakfast your housemate has made , because it is his turn to cook.

Since church is not an option given the hangover, I am a member of Couch Ministries. I sit on my favorite sofa and tune in to one of those local TV gospel shows characterized by unbridled religious fervour summoned from divine inspiration, typically involving speaking in tongues and wild uncoordinated movements of the body. Since on many occasions my roommate is away on Sundays, there is no hot breakfast waiting and the only option left is to enjoy the cold beef stew and ugali from the previous night. That cold dish is unbelievably delicious on a tongue previously drenched in beer.

I sit there and watch fiery sermons from a man of God warbling in unknown and quite possibly contrived languages. I am particularly fascinated by the miraculous on-the-spot healing (usually for a painless fee of Ksh. 310), the laying on of hands and the general openness in loud expression, whatever emotion the Holy Ghost is pulling forth may be.

On such days, I want to wear nothing other than a maasai shuka around my waist. No underwear. Sunday is the day I let my nuts hang free and enjoy the cool breeze that the Lord has made on this day. I leave them loose, so they can hang low. And keep me grounded.

When the gospel show is done and the pastor begins to request tithe and sadaka, I switch on the internet and go straight to www.g2g.fm to catch up on the latest movies and series. A 48” Samsung Curve TV allows for that kind of thing.

I want to watch Fury over and over again, holding back tears at that last moment when Brad Pitt’s tanker is attacked by a swarm of Nazi infantry. I want to sit there wishing I had the loyalty of a soldier, the kind that makes me want to put my neck on the line for my country.

Sometime in the afternoon, I want to play Sauti Sol’s Sura Yako at full blast without caring about the dude next door with a baby.  If he comes to ask me to turn it down a notch, I will not answer. This is only fair considering his baby wakes us up every day at 3.00am and never do we ask for it to be turned down a notch.

I want to do that Lipala jig that Sauti Sol is famed for, in the bathroom under a hot shower with the door open because you know how lower class Nairobi architecture is. As if by some unwritten ordinance, someone decided that the toilet and the shower should be in the same tiny compartment that leaves no room to even swing a cat. So to pull off that Lipala dance properly, I need to keep the door open. With nothing but the shower gel on the window sill and the toilet with its mouth wide open as the audience of my spectacular performance, I just want to dance.

After that, I want to stand in front of the mirror and study how water dries up on skin. The droplets of water rest on my belly like teardrops on a depleted glass of red wine. I want to admire myself and remind the Grandfather above that He hasn’t made them like me since the invention of sliced bread.

I do not want to clean on Sunday. It is Sabbath. The Lord forbids it. I want the dishes to stay dirty in the sink. I do not want to wipe the layer of dust off my television. I do not want to clean the carpet or organize the bedroom. The towel can remain on the floor for a day, together with yesterday’s underwear and socks. If I leave the bed unmade, it is not like it will need 3 hours of therapy with a shrink to work through its feelings of neglect. God said that all living things should rest on the seventh day and that means you too, germs.

Unfortunately this Sunday is different. A jaber slept over.

That means I had to wake up early to make breakfast. That means I have to kick the condoms far away under the bed where she cannot see which brand I use. Look here ladies, do not be deceived that a guy used one of those fancy rubbers (unless you bought them). If you did not bother checking, most likely it was one of those  free government subsidized condoms from the dispensers at Kenyatta National Hospital. The ones with unsexy and slightly mocking names, like ‘Sure’.

Now that a girl slept over, I need to go fetch my manners from wherever I hid them. No dancing to Lipala at full volume. No chilling naked to catch a movie while stroking gently at my jewels. When she wakes up, she will start rearranging my house to a point where I cannot recognize it anymore. Goddamit she will fold my underwear. Who the hell folds boxers?

Then, most annoyingly, she will go through my library and put Ernest Hemingway’s When the Bell Tolls on the same shelf as Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger. What she does not understand is that there is a method to the madness. My house is fine the way it is on a Sunday. In fact, why is she even here at noon? That is way past her curfew; she has already overstayed her welcome. The sex was great and all, but that does not mean I want to start sharing my toothbrush for Christ’s sake.

Young bachelors like me believe in Frenchie’s philosophy on fucking; that it is not created for anyone’s conscious awakening. It should only feel really good.

To be fair, the only reason she agreed to come home with me was because she saw a nice piece of meat. Not ati to meet my parents, or my neighbour’s dog. She wanted to be kissed until she remembered what it feels like to be alive again. To wrap herself around me and hold on tight until the Kama Sutra is reincarnated from our energies.

I on the other hand had almost similar interests; to fuck until the new dad next door came knocking for a reason other than loud music, and then wake her up at 6.00am so I could trace the trail of her spine with my tongue until my taste buds get drunk from the flavor of her skin. Then escort her to the matatu stop.

Isn’t that what bachelors are supposed to do? At least until you put a piece of shiny metal on a finger with a long (probably fake) painted nail? No?  I feel so. Otherwise you will be one of those shameless pensioners parking tinted Harriers outside University of Nairobi hostels every Friday evening.

I wish I could tell her to just leave so that I can have whatever is left of my Sunday back. But if she has to stay a little longer as she waits for her cab guy, it would be nice if she fixed me a hair of the dog to clear up the fog in my head.

Then maybe, just maybe, I could invite her to the pad next time for spaghetti mbolonye and tea masala beef stew.

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P.S: Today is this blog’s birthday. It has been 4 amazing years. We have laughed more than we have cried. Happy anniversary, guys. Keep reading.