LIFE BY LOUIS: Unfinished business with boy who stole my inner garment

My love-hate relationship with people with itchy fingers did not just start in the streets of Nairobi where people with evil intentions are always lurking at the corner waiting to convert my phone into their private use.

I once lost my Nokia 3310 phone. That experience landed me at a trauma counselling centre because I could not come to terms with the loss of my first phone.

But that was nothing compared to an experience in high school where someone stole my treasured inner garment.

It was a painful experience that left me with scars in my soul that have taken a lifetime to heal.

When we were growing up, our mothers bought our clothes all the way from socks to the small trousers that are worn inside the main trousers, also known as underwear.

And that was until we were well into high school where the bigger boys challenged us into taking ownership of such garments that are supposed to be private.

MY DIGNITY

I graduated into wearing the small triangular garment that was worn inside the major trousers when I was in Class Five. That was after the whole world had seen my dignity all it wanted.

Nowadays the underwear in its original form is almost extinct and has been replaced by a more elaborate garment called boxers.

My problem with boxers is that it does not seem to have decided if it wants to be shorts or trousers, but I have embraced it nonetheless because no one is selling the original underwear any more.

All our shorts and trousers had buttons as opposed to the more decent zips that come as default for modern forms of clothing.

As young and restless boys, we often forgot to do back the buttons after performing the usual biological function.

Subsequently, our dignity was almost always out there getting vitamin D and getting exposed to all kinds of the vagaries of weather, safari ants and unwanted stares.

There were other predisposing factors that made our dignity exposed to everyone who had eyes to see. Climbing trees and skating on the mud on our bottoms shredded the shorts repeatedly and exposed parts of our bodies that were meant to be private. As a result, anyone who wished to get unrestricted view to our confidential body parts was granted full rights. It was like accessing Uhuru Park or Kenyatta Beach on a sunny day. 

THE SMALLER PROBLEM

But that was the smaller problem.

When I finally got the small triangular garment that is worn inside the chief trousers, I did not know how to treat it.

My problem was further complicated by the procurement procedures involved in buying the garment.

Wa Hellen never really bothered to take my size when she chose the tiny garment from the market one Saturday. 

She therefore showed up with something I still can’t wear today, even with my generous posterior anthropometry. It was about three sizes bigger.

Since I could not risk telling her to return it for the right size as that would take another year of waiting, I proceeded to wear it as it was.

I remember it was a Friday when I first wore it, and it was also the zonal games day.

That garment stopped short of giving me high blood pressure at a tender age.

It kept sliding down and through the legs of the shorts, sometimes peeping all the way around the knees.

In order to avoid it tripping me to the floor, I kept pulling it up and trying in vain to tie it into a knot at the corners around my waist. The fact that it was made of cheap polyester material did not make the job of tying it into a knot any easier.

To make matters worse, the games day was all about walking and running around, and the oversize garment was nearly bringing me down with every step.

That weekend I discovered the needle and thread.

I gathered the edges of the garment and stitched up the corners until it fit like a skin over a drum.

I had further struggles with the garment. For example, I was not conversant with the changing and washing frequency, where to spread them after washing and how to stitch them when they developed gaping holes.

Later in high school, after saving my pocket money via starving myself to the size of a refugee, I bought myself a designer underwear. We fondly called the garments ‘Y’, and I treated mine with extreme care. It had the pattern of a chess table, and was inscribed with the name of a famous American basketball team.

My joy at having acquired a bespoke Y was short-lived. One Friday after washing it in preparation for a weekend when girls from a neighbouring school were visiting for a club meeting, someone stole it during night preps.

In order for you to understand just how precious the garment was, it was plucked violently from under the mattress where it was drying peacefully. The offender seemed bent on acquiring it by all means given the amount of effort and surveillance that he put to acquire it.

That night, I covered my head in bed and cried like a baby. There was a prime suspect but he was never apprehended because he sneaked out of school the same night and when he came back he denied any knowledge of the heist.

I still remember the suspect, and more than twenty years later I feel like I have some unfinished business with him.

I shall revisit at an appropriate time.