I had a very bad experience with this girl. We were in our first year. Our first lecture. This girl walked up to my desk trying to sit on the desk next to me. I said, “Sorry, but there’s someone sitting there.” I didn’t know who was sitting there but I met a bag on the desk and it meant someone was already owning the seat. This girl walked to the seat at the back and sat there. All throughout the lectures nobody came to sit on the desk next to me. After lectures, she came back, “Hey gentleman, “What did you do that for? Who is that person you said was sitting on this seat?” Before I could explain, she cut me midway and started hauling insults at me. “You guys ought to stop those silly things you do around here. You reserve seats for ghosts when human beings are here? Is that person more important than I am? It’s crude so don’t do it again.”
I wanted to take her on. I looked around and eyes were watching. I stopped myself from engaging her in a brawl. When we closed for the day, I approached her, “Young lady, I want to explain things to you. I didn’t…” before I could complete my statement, she threw her hand in the air and did, “Mmai” and continued walking. I took notice of her face. I told myself, “There would come a day that I would retaliate. I don’t forgive such insolence. I won’t allow any woman to treat me like that.”
Another morning, she walked to my desk. She didn’t even ask if someone was sitting there. She just removed my bag and threw it on the floor. She sat on the seat and started chewing loudly. I reserved the seat for a friend who was coming from town. She wasn’t living on campus so she got to lectures very late. She wanted a place closer to the board and I promised I was going to reserve a seat for her. I said, “Dear, this seat is for someone who just walked out to take a pee. She’s here. She’s not a ghost. She had been here already so you can’t take her seat.” She responded, “If she comes, any moment from now, I’ll get up. She’s going to pee, right? That won’t take so long.”
I was getting angry. The way she spoke to me and how she rolled her eyes after each word got me irritated. I warned, “No you can’t sit here. There are plenty of empty seats around. Pick one and leave this one for the owner.” She didn’t say another word. She picked her earpiece, put it in her ears, and started singing along. I packed my bags and went to sit three seats away from that spot. It was behind her so she didn’t see it when my friend walked in. I felt it was the spot she wanted so I never sat there again.
Another morning, she came in very late. the lecturer was already lecturing. Immediately she walked in she started looking around for an empty seat. Again, I’d reserved a seat for my friend. Immediately her eyes came into contact with mine, she started walking in my direction. I said in my head, “Clearly, this girl was sent from the village to traumatize my mornings. Why is she always going after my seat?” She got to my place, removed the bag on the seat, placed it on the ground, and sat on it. No word was said until the lecture was over. I confronted her, “Young lady, it looks like you’re targeting me. Once, twice, trice can’t be an accident. The lecturer was around that’s why I mellowed for you. Next time you won’t have it this cheap.”
She took a step backward, look at me from the top to the toe, and said, “Targeting you? For what exactly? I don’t have time to target people who wear the same trousers to lectures every day. Sorry, I don’t have your time.” I looked down at my trousers. She was right. I was wearing it every day because it was my favorite pair of trousers. It gave my legs a slender look and made me feel like a model so I loved it. I thought nobody was watching. By the time I looked up again, she was on her way going. I concluded, “She wasn’t sent from the village to traumatize my life. I know my village witches. They don’t hate me that much to send this Armageddon on me.
From there, I did everything to avoid her. I stopped sitting in front of the class and went backward. She didn’t like the back so she didn’t come there to worry me. Because of her, I changed my trousers often but each time I wore something new, she wouldn’t come to class. Let me wear the old trousers and bam, this girl would be walking like a swan to class.
From the first year to the third year, I never spoke to her again. In the third year, we were supposed to go out for industrial attachment. I spoke to one or two lecturers and they gave me the opportunity to do my attachment in one of the offices on campus. I went to the office the first day and this girl was there. My seat was next to her seat. I was wearing the same trousers she spoke about. I looked at her and she looked at my trousers. I asked myself, “Or I should go and change it?” I didn’t. I walked boldly to my seat and picked a daily graphic and started reading it. Just a day in the office and she was already free with all the workers there, except me. I didn’t want to have anything to do with her so I avoided her as much as I could. We were doing the same thing so we teamed up often to work on a project for the office.
She smiled when she saw me. She would come to work and greet me. She would go for lunch and ask if there’s something she should get for me. She was overly kind so I thought I should bring the ghost of our past into the conversation. I asked her, “So what was that for? That aggression and confrontation. Was it about me or you were making me suffer for someone’s mistake?” “Not at all,” she responded. “It was my way to fit in. The class is mainly masculine. I couldn’t play soft and expect to have my way. It was my coping mechanism. A way to fight for my share of the meat in the jungle.” “But that wasn’t fair? If you spoke to me pleadingly, you would have had a better result than you did.” I said. She asked me, “Would you have given me the seat if I came pleading? Anyway, we’re older now. We can keep our old trousers but we can’t keep grudges. Just let it go.”
So I addressed my trousers situation that day; “You know I have many trousers right? That one happens to be my favorite, that’s all.” She said, “Don’t we all have favorites? The bra I’m wearing. It’s my favorite too. I wear it often. If you see it, you may think I wear it every day. So it’s normal. Keep shining in your favorite. You have every right to.”
Our relationship with each other softened to a certain extent. We could do a lot together and not fight. When she wasn’t coming to work I covered up for her. When she wanted to sneak out of the office for personal stuff, I covered up for her. When there was something too hard for her to do, I did it for her. When school resumed, we went back to school duties and didn’t talk so much as we used to when we were working in the same office. We completed school and left campus. Months later, I started my national service in a district in the Ashanti region. All service personnel collected their national service allowance from one rural bank. We gather there at the end of the month, sign our cards, and take our money.
I was in a queue one early morning when the guy behind me tapped my back and asked, “Is it true she comes after you?” I asked, ”Who?” He said, “This lady.” I looked back and it was her. She winked and I winked back. I told the guy, “Yeah, I came with her but she went to buy something.” She stood behind me and whispered, “Thank you. I’ll give you one cedi out of my allowance.”
She was doing her service in the same district. In a village not too far from where I was doing my service. She said, “Come look for me sometimes.”
On weekends I was in her village. The weekend after that weekend I was in her village. The weekend after those two weekends, she was in my village. A month before we completed our national service, she was wearing my old t-shirt and cooking for me. She cooked and slept over. It was a normal thing for her to do because she had become my girlfriend. Months later, we both left the village to chase our dreams. She got a job before me. A very good job that opened the avenue for her to meet top people and influencers. She was the reason why I also got a job a year later.
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Two years later, we got married and started a life together. We’ve been married for over eight years now and every now and then I remember our very first encounter. It wasn’t an accident that she behaved that way towards me. As she said, it’s her coping mechanism. Wherever you put her, she goes in strong and is never scared of stepping on a few toes if the truth was at stake. She won’t call a spade a big spoon just to massage someone’s ego. A spade is a spade though it looks like a big spoon. I don’t have that kind of strength she possesses so I’m always hiding behind her to carry out my agenda. Friends call me “Wifee.” They say I mention her name in every statement I make. I don’t catch myself doing that but they say I do it so I’ve accepted it.
Everything I call my favorite gets missing a day or two later. If I call a shirt my favorite, the next day I won’t see it again. If a shoe becomes my favorite, it will disappear from my lockers without a trace. In the last eight years, we’ve been together, favorite boxers have disappeared. Favorite shirts went to the laundry basket and didn’t come back again. Favorite trousers? I’ve lost so many. But I don’t complain. I don’t complain because I know the executioner. The first time I called a pair of trousers my favorite, she saw what happened so now she kills them before they become addictive. I don’t fight her. I don’t quarrel with her because even if I lose all my favorite things, there is one thing I can’t lose no matter how many times I call it my favorite, and that’s her. And she’s enough for me. All a man needs is one favorite thing in a lifetime.
—Kankam
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