MY VIEW: What manner of men are these, my friends?

Real men, I believe, should not worry about the jokes that will be hurled their way whenever their team loses. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • I know unflinching men who have banned their wives from ever coming within a two-metre radius of their phones.
  • I have encountered blokes who go dangerously far from their tethers when drunk.
  • I have also heard about men who help their children cheat in examinations. This is a breed of men that, I think, should not be allowed to reproduce.

At my age, I don’t think there are types of men I have not yet encountered. I reckon I have seen a number.

I have encountered men whose wives say they never leave even a single miserable shilling in their pockets to offer them solace when they are doing laundry.

Guys, please start “forgetting” even a random Sh20 coin in your pocket. They think it is romantic, apparently.

I know unflinching men who have banned their wives from ever coming within a two-metre radius of their phones.

Some men have told me that whenever the wife flouts the unwritten rule and finds questionable material on the phone, the first question she must answer is how she accessed the phone in the first place.

Okay, some of you blokes are too incorrigible that no one can restore your factory settings — which are all about men being open to the beings made from their ribs.

I have encountered nimble men. The other day I saw passengers scrambling to enter a bus somewhere behind National Archives, Nairobi.

One man did not have time for the squeezing and rugby tackles. So, he broke from the crowd and headed to one of the bus windows.

I saw him open a window from outside, throw his bag in, and before I could adjust my recalcitrant camera to capture the wonder, he was already in the bus. Genius!

But I believe not many men can pull off such stunts, because some of us are limited by legs that are too short or bellies that have so many layers of fat encasing six-packs. What an ignoble sight it would be to see a man stuck on a matatu window because his waist dimensions disagree with those of the window!

REAL MEN AND COWARDS
I have encountered cowards. Like that man at a Nairobi cafe the other weekend who showed up to watch a televised Manchester United game while hiding his jersey.

When the team was two goals down to Newcastle, he was coiling his tail as he melancholically sipped from his bottle at a dark corner.

But as soon as the third goal was scored to complete the comeback, he removed the sweater and could now move to a brighter spot to show to the world that he supports the team that was almost being chastised at its home turf.

Real men, I believe, should not worry about the jokes that will be hurled their way whenever their team loses. Real men wear apparel of their favourite team on the day of the big match, like some of us will do when going to Kasarani later today.

I have seen men who irrigate trees and walls. There is a eucalyptus tree next to a wall in Nairobi’s Shauri Moyo that will one day complain about how much unsolicited urea it has received. That tree, I reckon, is the most artificially irrigated plant in the entire Nairobi region.

Its wide trunk provides top-notch privacy for men passing by to relieve themselves, and it is so popular that at any given time you will find a pool of urine at its base.

Had I been in a position of authority, I would have called for its cutting down because the liquid is a health hazard as it is poured near residential property. But I am a nobody in the county hierarchy and my call falls short. A short call.

I have encountered blokes who go dangerously far from their tethers when drunk. Like the inebriated man in a matatu the other day who had a bagful of insults for the deceased driver of the bus that crashed at Fort Ternan.

To make matters worse, he had been misinformed by the rumour mill that the driver came from a certain community, and for the entire trip, he kept hurling insults at that community.

Even if they came from a drunkard, the insults that were laced with cries for war carried a lot of potency, and any listener would wonder whether efforts to have inter-tribe cohesion have borne any fruit.

I would have loved to eavesdrop into a meeting between the drunk speaker and Mr Francis ole Kaparo, head of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, to see how Mr Kaparo would react to the man’s out-of-order remarks.

I have also heard about men who help their children cheat in examinations. This is a breed of men that, I think, should not be allowed to reproduce.

Is there any trifle of conscience in a man who pays to have his child get early access to exams? Yet it happens a lot, both with the 8-4-4 system and the GCSE system popular with expatriates.

These men are the scum of the scum. The real barons. The enablers of systemic corruption. The vermin.

I think I have seen all manner of men.

[email protected] Elvis Ondieki is a ‘Nation’ reporter. Caroline Njung’e’s column resumes soon.