I had a vexing week.
While diligently working on a mental health promotion project, I somehow came perilously close to being propositioned by a man who is very cute - for a leggy bullfrog. N2O can never talk about him without puffing out her belly and shuttling around at high speed. I asked her what she'd do if I actually loved him; she sincerely assured me she didn't care. Then she hurtled across the room again, stomach-first, cackling all the way.
The Frog Prince, from a partner organization, was initially very quiet about his interest; we've known each other for around a year now, though we've not met more than five or six times. He must have had some sort of epiphany recently.
“Do you remember my recommendation?”
My mind raced through all the possibilities: don't wear pants, lose weight, gain weight, cut your hair, give me your hair, get married, get married to a Congolese, have 10 children, give me a job, give me money...
“No,” I decided.
His face fell.
After a few failed attempts on my sanity, he eventually cornered me in my office with another short coworker who'd also been encouraged to 'submit his application' to me. That advisor had been a married man with a new baby, who'd lamented this fact to the laughter of the room at large at the time. Thankfully, the married man was a comedian, and the short coworker knew better than to try (though his smile when he shakes my hand for too long is unnerving).
The Frog Prince had no such survival instinct. He stood at my desk, answered my panicked work-related questions indulgently, and then made his move.
“How is your family?”
“Fine.” Please don't--
“Where are they?”
Seated, I gazed a few millimetres up into his eyes and sealed my coffin. “In Canada.”
My coworker, who was failing at pretending to work, had started sniggering.
“Are you married?”
“No.” Well, at least I won't be the one wearing heels to the wedding.
“You should marry a Congolese.”
The choked laughter was growing louder.
“Which number girl are you in your family?”
At this point, my coworker walked over, clapped the Frog Prince on the back in a fatherly fashion, and heartily asked for my dowry in big bills. They drew away, discussing arrangements, while I fought the urge to hide my face in my hands, giggle vapidly, and run from the room with a whirl of my braid and the chime of my bangles like any modest Bollywood heroine.
N2O heard him saying on the way out that he was going to do his best to come up with a dowry because I was intelligent and a dear.
Home is quite mad as well, but at least we all mainly avoid each other. I sometimes get to see the Phoenix, who, I'm forced to admit, loves me. I'd assumed he was just very good at hiding his hatred (after a misunderstanding with one of my teammates that we'd resolved in August), but as he's been even more talkative than when he'd first taught me numbers in Swahili and the prices of vegetables at the market, I decided to accept that maybe he'd never cut up lizards on my bed.
When I'd returned from India, I'd offered him peda, which he'd taken in handfuls while I'd watched in horror.
That's... It's... They're sweets! You take one or two with tea, not ten or fifteen!
And that was how a gift of a box of deliciousness, that I'd crammed into my luggage with force and prayer, had disappeared in one afternoon.
Since then, the Phoenix had been eyeing me as though I was hiding a meth lab in my tiny room. He'd sidled up to me whenever we were alone to murmur, “So, those biscuits...”
I'd explained to him more than once that they were finished – this week, he finally confronted me with his frustration.
“You should have brought more!”
“But I needed soap!” Conditioner and facewash, in reality, but I didn't feel like explaining this to a bald, middle-aged man.
“Soap is for clothes! You should bring biscuits!”
I was too tired to argue. The dry season has just started, and we've received water once within a two-week period. I'd been prepared to complain about this on its own merit until Carrottop reminded me that we'd moved from the 2nd floor (where we might've received water in the taps sometimes) to the 4th, where we never would and depended entirely on the memory and kindness of our landlord's housemaids – batty from the amount of washing up they have to do on a daily basis - on the 1st.
I would like to say for posterity: I told you so.
Never mind that we've had a pump that's done a great job for the past months, never mind that the dry season is hard on everyone, never mind that there is more privacy, never mind that we have a consistent schedule of power and solar-powered lights, never mind that I'd totally forgotten how pissed I'd been at moving 93 times, never mind that I'm not entirely sure what I told you in the midst of all the things I was telling you to keep from moving again.
I'm sure I said we wouldn't have water, and now we don't. I didn't know winning hurt so much.
Last year, I'd only noticed a distinct lack of water around August, so I'd assumed there must have been rain and some water in the pipes until then. When I professed my hope for rain next month, Carrottop reacted as kindly as I normally would in the face of delusional hysteria: “It will rain in September.”
She also offered solutions, but I was in no mood to listen – I was facing my second battle against invisible insects since last October, I had literally at least 60 horribly itchy, dark bites all over my body, and I didn't want buy stupid bidons and pay to get stupid water delivered to our stupid 4th-floor door for the next three stupid months of this stupid season.
The cause of most of this misery continues to live and breathe and wash dishes as though he is inherently a good person. The little homemaker even went so far as to ask me for a needle and thread recently. Knowing that he would rather pay someone to gnaw off his own arm than be inconvenienced in any way, I suspected he simply wanted to burn my sewing kit to teach me a lesson. So I cautiously asked if he wanted a big needle or a little one.
“It's not for heroin.”
This does not answer my question and now I have many more.
Butters later left the apartment, in the full knowledge that a possible admirer was soon to drop by with full bidons from our loving Grandpa – on my Saturday of Braless Solitude. (Timbit existed in the same space-time continuum, I assume, but she and I are like electrons around the nucleus of our home – it takes energy for us to leave, and we stay as far away from each other as possible.) So for around an hour I had to cross my arms and act friendly to this really very nice man who wanted me to invite him to Canada and confessed to rebuffing a rich woman who loved him.
His reasons? She would be too proud because he didn't have a job. Oh, and she was fat. Really fat. Really, really...
While diligently working on a mental health promotion project, I somehow came perilously close to being propositioned by a man who is very cute - for a leggy bullfrog. N2O can never talk about him without puffing out her belly and shuttling around at high speed. I asked her what she'd do if I actually loved him; she sincerely assured me she didn't care. Then she hurtled across the room again, stomach-first, cackling all the way.
The Frog Prince, from a partner organization, was initially very quiet about his interest; we've known each other for around a year now, though we've not met more than five or six times. He must have had some sort of epiphany recently.
“Do you remember my recommendation?”
My mind raced through all the possibilities: don't wear pants, lose weight, gain weight, cut your hair, give me your hair, get married, get married to a Congolese, have 10 children, give me a job, give me money...
“No,” I decided.
His face fell.
After a few failed attempts on my sanity, he eventually cornered me in my office with another short coworker who'd also been encouraged to 'submit his application' to me. That advisor had been a married man with a new baby, who'd lamented this fact to the laughter of the room at large at the time. Thankfully, the married man was a comedian, and the short coworker knew better than to try (though his smile when he shakes my hand for too long is unnerving).
The Frog Prince had no such survival instinct. He stood at my desk, answered my panicked work-related questions indulgently, and then made his move.
“How is your family?”
“Fine.” Please don't--
“Where are they?”
Seated, I gazed a few millimetres up into his eyes and sealed my coffin. “In Canada.”
My coworker, who was failing at pretending to work, had started sniggering.
“Are you married?”
“No.” Well, at least I won't be the one wearing heels to the wedding.
“You should marry a Congolese.”
The choked laughter was growing louder.
“Which number girl are you in your family?”
At this point, my coworker walked over, clapped the Frog Prince on the back in a fatherly fashion, and heartily asked for my dowry in big bills. They drew away, discussing arrangements, while I fought the urge to hide my face in my hands, giggle vapidly, and run from the room with a whirl of my braid and the chime of my bangles like any modest Bollywood heroine.
N2O heard him saying on the way out that he was going to do his best to come up with a dowry because I was intelligent and a dear.
Home is quite mad as well, but at least we all mainly avoid each other. I sometimes get to see the Phoenix, who, I'm forced to admit, loves me. I'd assumed he was just very good at hiding his hatred (after a misunderstanding with one of my teammates that we'd resolved in August), but as he's been even more talkative than when he'd first taught me numbers in Swahili and the prices of vegetables at the market, I decided to accept that maybe he'd never cut up lizards on my bed.
When I'd returned from India, I'd offered him peda, which he'd taken in handfuls while I'd watched in horror.
That's... It's... They're sweets! You take one or two with tea, not ten or fifteen!
And that was how a gift of a box of deliciousness, that I'd crammed into my luggage with force and prayer, had disappeared in one afternoon.
Since then, the Phoenix had been eyeing me as though I was hiding a meth lab in my tiny room. He'd sidled up to me whenever we were alone to murmur, “So, those biscuits...”
I'd explained to him more than once that they were finished – this week, he finally confronted me with his frustration.
“You should have brought more!”
“But I needed soap!” Conditioner and facewash, in reality, but I didn't feel like explaining this to a bald, middle-aged man.
“Soap is for clothes! You should bring biscuits!”
I was too tired to argue. The dry season has just started, and we've received water once within a two-week period. I'd been prepared to complain about this on its own merit until Carrottop reminded me that we'd moved from the 2nd floor (where we might've received water in the taps sometimes) to the 4th, where we never would and depended entirely on the memory and kindness of our landlord's housemaids – batty from the amount of washing up they have to do on a daily basis - on the 1st.
I would like to say for posterity: I told you so.
Never mind that we've had a pump that's done a great job for the past months, never mind that the dry season is hard on everyone, never mind that there is more privacy, never mind that we have a consistent schedule of power and solar-powered lights, never mind that I'd totally forgotten how pissed I'd been at moving 93 times, never mind that I'm not entirely sure what I told you in the midst of all the things I was telling you to keep from moving again.
I'm sure I said we wouldn't have water, and now we don't. I didn't know winning hurt so much.
Last year, I'd only noticed a distinct lack of water around August, so I'd assumed there must have been rain and some water in the pipes until then. When I professed my hope for rain next month, Carrottop reacted as kindly as I normally would in the face of delusional hysteria: “It will rain in September.”
She also offered solutions, but I was in no mood to listen – I was facing my second battle against invisible insects since last October, I had literally at least 60 horribly itchy, dark bites all over my body, and I didn't want buy stupid bidons and pay to get stupid water delivered to our stupid 4th-floor door for the next three stupid months of this stupid season.
The cause of most of this misery continues to live and breathe and wash dishes as though he is inherently a good person. The little homemaker even went so far as to ask me for a needle and thread recently. Knowing that he would rather pay someone to gnaw off his own arm than be inconvenienced in any way, I suspected he simply wanted to burn my sewing kit to teach me a lesson. So I cautiously asked if he wanted a big needle or a little one.
“It's not for heroin.”
This does not answer my question and now I have many more.
Butters later left the apartment, in the full knowledge that a possible admirer was soon to drop by with full bidons from our loving Grandpa – on my Saturday of Braless Solitude. (Timbit existed in the same space-time continuum, I assume, but she and I are like electrons around the nucleus of our home – it takes energy for us to leave, and we stay as far away from each other as possible.) So for around an hour I had to cross my arms and act friendly to this really very nice man who wanted me to invite him to Canada and confessed to rebuffing a rich woman who loved him.
His reasons? She would be too proud because he didn't have a job. Oh, and she was fat. Really fat. Really, really...
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