Monkey Business: Dad is a merciful Dad (well, sort of)

by Ifeanyi Dike Jr

I did not even know what vulnerable meant at the time but having heard Hilda Dokubo say it in a crying scene, I knew it was something to be sympathised with.

Dad is a ‘spare the rod’ sort of parent – always has been. Once in a well-spaced out while however, he gives a long overdue thrashing and even he cannot believe his eyes after he is done with you. It was the sort of thrashing that put your whole life into perspective, enough to make up for all the times he spared the rod. In secondary school for example, he had assured me he’d leave me in school for summer if I failed a course and when I did, he shockingly kept to his word. One time when I frustrated his math tutoring efforts and another time with one of my ‘be a thousandnaire before 10’ schemes, passing around fake donation flyers for the vulnerable kids. This was of course a good gesture until he found out there was in fact only one kid involved and it was me. I did not even know what vulnerable meant at the time but having heard Hilda Dokubo say it in a crying scene, I knew it was something to be sympathised with. And I don’t blame him; surely he had to do something about such nonsense behaviour.

But dad is also a procrastinator. He once bought a book called ‘Eat that frog – a book about curing procrastination’ which of course he has never taken off the shelf. The good thing is his procrastination applies to everything, including punishments. If you are lucky, he’ll postpone punishments into the New Year and as they say, whatever happened last year is in the past.

Last week however, I crossed the line. Having already made charitable donations to my insatiable shopping funds, I had a field day exhausting his Master Card. I have a problem you see, I’m an obsessive compulsive shopper who has to have things in pairs whether I need the second pair or not. Also, I like to have an even number of things. So if I had four pairs of shoes, I’d have to buy two more. In addition, all my stuff has to be the same size, length and fit as their brother pair.  Quite frankly, it’s a complicated ritual that I should get rid of but I simply cannot.

My father gave me his Master Card because we had an understanding. ‘Order the text book you want and return my card’ he said. He didn’t get confirmatory transaction text messages and he did not care for a regular bank statement but he trusted me. I was going to uphold his trust. There was no network at the time so I took down his details and returned his card, with the anticipation of making the transaction later. When I checked and saw that the book was unavailable, I decided to spend the same amount of money on Asos (an online store) but the devil took advantage of me and led me into temptation. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t fall but there were things on the site I had been waiting the entire year for and they were stinking beautiful. I had to get them immediately, lest the people hoping to lose weight by summer buy out my size and leave the heartrending dilemma of deciding between only XL and XLL. So I bought, and bought, until my conscience eluded me.

Now I hadn’t thought this through, it was impulsive so I was uncertain what my eventual plan was. All I knew was I was going to pay him back in instalments, until it was the end of his year when his statement of account was usually mailed.  What I did not count on was his good-for-nothing bank to contact him about the transactions. They apparently wanted to inform him that one of the jackets he ordered was unavailable and he needed to send a response mail to claim his returned money. I imagine he was adequately stunned.

‘Junior’ he said, with the same tone he had that time I ran his new car into Commanders fence despite having warned me against driving his car aimlessly (driving into a fence does count as aimless), ‘when I get home today, I will beat you like an African drum’.

 

Comments (5)

  1. lmafoo. this is the funiest yet. i will beat you like an african drum. why dont they respond to comments. i've been a loyal fan since day one

  2. lol…did he finally beat u like an African drum? wondering how you sounded.

  3. I never stop laughing @ ur blogs !!!!!!it throws me off my chair literarilly

    1. Read too,now dats funny"junior I will be you like African drum"

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail