A Date With The Devil: An Encounter With Our Khaki In-Law

CAVEAT: This piece is not a child of fiction or a gift from the land of
imagination. It is a true life story that happened to a dear friend @
UNN ikere campus sometimes last year. I derive so much interest in
it that I sought his permission to write about it and tell it to friends
and fans. He granted that permission today with two conditions: that
nobody should laugh about it and that his identity should not be
revealed. Enjoy.

It was one of those lovely nights at the love lane in the University of
Nigeria, Ikere campus ; the milieu was blessed by a mishmash of cool
gentle wind and the creaking of insects. It was a romance with nature
for the single gentlemen and ladies to sit quietly and savour the
indescribable beauty of the ever-green lawn, jumbled with the sound
of their favourite tracks that would leave one with an expression that
the much talked about paradise could not be better than the moment.
As for those at the lane with their potential partners, night was
obviously better than day as no amount of eye dilation could tell who
was holding who so tight. Also, the third category comprised of the
searchers. The actor in this story went for a search on that lovely
night; I went with him all in the spirit of comradeship.
After few minutes of survey, I was fast to recommend a beautiful lady
sitting under one of the trees near Ojomu Atolagbe Ojoms Photo shop
@ former motion groud . She was different, at least considering the
circumstance, she did not look like someone waiting for her Romeo
or searching for one. If she was, what was she doing with such a big
textbook on her thighs? We walked towards her direction and sat
beside her. After we said the usual “Hi” which was reciprocated by
an indistinct reply, I knew she was one of those girls mummy warned
against campus boys with tiny trousers. My friend then took over his
business, “I am Azikwe” he said with a smile, the young lady looked
up with a better and receptive smile as she replied “Did I ask you?”
Then I knew her initial smile was not near receptive, it was the type a
typical Yoruba street guy would call “erin ika”. The moment I noticed
the god of “toasting” was not on our side that day, I stood from my
friend’s side and sat at the left side of the girl. Now, she was in the
middle. I made an obvious giraffe neck into the book she was
reading but I had no idea of the formulas negotiating with few English
words like “force”, “space”, “energy”. It was a huge Physics text
book! Till date, I still do not know where the inspiration came from
but I started nodding my head as I fixed my gaze at the text book. I
would look at the book she was reading for few seconds and then
nod. I noticed she observed me doing that but she acted ignorant but
I did not stop it. In less than 10 minutes, she looked up and asked
“you know Physics?” I looked at her with a face filled with pride and
refused to reply. That made her grow more inquisitive, she then
faced her potential Romeo she initially shunned and asked “what
course do you people study?” He was fast to say “Pol Sci and my
Friend FAYO Acounting” and then it was like our chance of surviving
the heat of the moment increased just because of that Pol and
Accounting thing.