On Bended Knees

It was one of those cold evenings in the Lagos Metropolis, the elegant couple walked into the Restaurant sharing a joke and laughing in low tones, their usual spot is empty as they sneak into their seats. The restaurant is unusually crowded, maybe because of the rain that seemed to have created a little bit of traffic on the high way causing a lot of the patronisers to re consider the option of going home in the go slow.

The couple take their seats as the waiter comes to take their orders, they take their usual; the guy orders pounded yam with efo riro

and 2 snails with bottle of Sanz, She orders a plate of chips with chicken and a bottle of water. As the waiter leaves, the guy calls him back and hands him his card and says “ Your manger asked me to bring this the next time I am here, please help me give him now, thank you”. The waiter collects the card with a smile on his face and nods his head to show perfect understanding of the instruction. Like any typical naija lady, she asks what that was about and the guy tells her a tale of him and the manager being high school buddies and how they met at the door the last time he was here...He promised to bring his complimentary card for him the next time he came around, she smiles with a little mischief in her face and says “I hope he gives us discount as per alma mata sake now”.

For the next ten minutes thy talk about their day and their colleagues at work, he informs her of the appraisal going on in his department and his silent prayers that his boss does not remember the last time he came to the office late with a lame excuse; she gives his hand that is lying on the table an encouraging tab and re-affirms that she’ll join in his prayer. She then goes on to tell him of her dramatic day, from the okada man who ran away with her change in the morning, to the office gossip whose spreading rumors about the boss illicit affair with the receptionist downstairs, just when she’s getting to tell the tale of how she was chosen to head the office end of year party committee, the waiter comes in with their orders.

Their attention is now focused on their meal, as both make silent individual prayers over their meals; as she picks up the fork, the music in the restaurant changes from the loud blast of Beyonce’s Single Ladies to the slow tempo of Destiny’s child “ Cater to you”..Her ears tingle and her eyes light up cos its her favorite love song and hums the words slowly as she takes her first bite of the food. The guy looks over her head and gives a wink to someone, when two waiters come to their tables with 2 boxes one of them quite large and the other quite small, they drop it on the table and the girl asks “Sorry we didn’t order for this, did we ?”, the chief waiter (same one who had collected the card earlier) responds “compliments of the manager” facing the guy whose maintained a straight face all along “he says thanks for keeping in touch”, and both waiters leave briskly; distributing some papers to other people in the restaurant.

The girl asks her man, whats the box for, he shrugs his shoulder with an excuse that maybe he wanted to reward me for being nice to him back in their school days, he tells her “You can go along and look at it, lets be sure we are not carrying a contraband out of the restaurant”, She gives him a look then drops her fork to open the larger one. She opens the box to find a cake shaped like a door with an inscription saying “This door can only opened by a Key-word, open before you eat”, She says “hmmn this your guy has some weird sense of humor and I’m sure this small one must be the key”, he drops his fork and says “At least its not contraband, Let me check the second one to be double sure”, she smiles and passes it to him, he opens the box slowly and sighs “Interesting”, she looks at him and says “What’s interesting ?”, he turns the opened box to her direction and shows her a small crest shaped cake with inscription “Key inside”, He asks her “Can I open it” She nods her head, turning the box back to his direction, he opens the box and smiles, she asks him “So is the key there?” he nods and says “Yeah, but look everyone seems to be looking at us”, she turns her head to also observe that all eyes truly seems to be on them. Feeling creepy, she turns to report to him that this was really strange, only to find on his knee with the box open, a glistering ring in the crest and he says “ Berry, you’re my one and only true love and you alone hold the keys to the doors of my heart…Will you be my wife? “.

**********************************************************************************************************

Alright folks welcome back to reality, its not a holly wood movie its just a story (true life, not sure), but does this really happen in Nigeria. Are there men out there who are willing to take the knee before they ask her hand in marriage. A friend of mine, when I asked if he was going to kneel and ask her to marry him, he blatantly said “KO JO” interpretation, not in this millennium. Why would he do that to a girl ? its only done in the movies he says.

I wonder , how do Nigerian guys propose anyway, because since I’ve been eating outside not one day have I ever seen this scenario painted above aver played, I guess we the black guys of naija have our own definition of a romantic proposal. Of course there are certain schools of thought that believe that there’s no need to even propose because she already knows from the number of years you have been going out and the number of times you have visited her family home that you want to marry her, Some others do it over the telephone, of course that often slips out in the middle of a conversation like it was never planned from the beginning. And there is the old church style method where the girl I meant sister is not proposed to but given a revelation of how he received diving instruction to receive her as his wife.

Be that as it may, you’ll still find some Nigerian guys with the craziest ideas of proposing, some have said they’ll use advert boards in Maryland, radio personalities to called their beloved up, special tv commercials at a specific significant time to ask her hand in marriage. One guy wants to told me he’ll get his girl friend’s boss to give her a query that would state she comes with a YES answer to the proposal on his table, when she arrives at her boss office, she’ll find him there with a proposal and ring asking her hand in marriage….yeah I know you think I’m obviously lost in dream land and I think I am, but most times after these ideas are conceived they never seem to materialize and of course no one ever mentions ever going on his knees…its like a show of mumuism for some; Me, kneel for a girl…..IMPOSSIBLE, did I hear you say.

Anyway, I cant seem to wait to hear or see a guy get on his knees to ask his girl to be wife, I think it shows how much you respect her and value her, it also shows that you’re not ashamed of her in public and you can declare to the world that she’s yours…I am sure many ladies dream of this day, though I hate to disappoint most of you that Naija guys have knee issues but that doesn’t in any measure erase the fact they love you. You’ll be surprised how crazy their concepts can be in these occasions and ladies when it happens, even if you are expecting, act genuinely surprised and don’t ruin his dramatic creativity.

Guys, best of luck and I speak to myself too, i am open to ideas cos sooner or later I bet this blog will haunt me in the face.

But the question that begs to be answered is “Suppose she says NO”

Signing out

Ocharlyie

(In part 2, I’ll suggest scenarios and places you can propose and I’m sure your answer can’t be NO”