Adio, My Husband

My husband is Jimoh Omi Adio but I call him Oko mi Adio, which translates ‘Adio, my husband.’ It is a pet name that has stuck since I fell in love with him heart, soul and body. He is witty, humorous, kind and gentle. My parents love him. My brothers, sisters, uncles and cousins admire him because he is a perfect gentleman. He is the best husband any woman can dream of. But, my friend, I don’t know what has happened to Oko mi Adio of recent. He has become diabolically humorous and, at times, extravagantly upbeat. Initially, I thought it was the same old Adio I knew. Now, I don’t know whether he has become senile or imbecile.

What has he done lately?

If you don't mind, I want you to sit down properly and listen to the catalogue of deeds, misdeeds, gaffes, goofs, boobs and booboos that Oko mi Adio continues to dish out everyday to the utter embarrassment and shame of the Adio family. Just yesterday, he came back home with a swollen face and bloodshot eyes. You need to see my husband. He looked like somebody who had just had an engagement with ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson. I asked him how he got the black eye. You know what Oko mi Adio said? He told me that the chief political thug in our neighbourhood was released from prison on his birthday and he had only gone to wish him many happy returns when he descended on him with hammer blows and upper cuts. Serves you right, I said.

To me, your husband was just a victim of circumstance.

It appears you don’t know Oko mi Adio. He can make joke of any situation but, at times, I wouldn’t know whether it is deliberate or inadvertent. For instance, a friend of his was suffering from a terminal disease and his doctor told him he had only two years to live. My husband told him not to worry, that he could live for an extra 22 years if only he (his friend) could consult 11 more doctors! Can you beat that? And he can be very mischievous, too. Last year, my sister was planning to celebrate her birthday as usual and, without any prompting, my husband was all over town announcing that my sister wanted to celebrate the anniversary of her birthday. A friend of his was so confused that he wanted to know if Oko mi Adio knew the difference between celebrating an anniversary and a birthday. My husband said he knew what he was talking about, that my sister was actually celebrating the 25th anniversary of her 21st birthday! You know what? Oko mi Adio is as stupid as his uncle. In fact, only God knows who is more stupid. The uncle took a bet one day, after taking too much palm wine, that he could jump down from a four-storey building. His nephew, Oko mi Adio, boasted all over their town, a town that could easily pass as a village, that his uncle had achieved the unimaginable by jumping from a four-storey building but when reminded that there wasn’t a four-storey building in the town, he told the ‘doubting Thomases’ that his uncle achieved the feat by jumping off a two-storey building twice! Both uncle and nephew are irredeemable imbeciles. If you think it is a gender issue, you are wrong. His sister is not better. I think the ‘thing’ runs in the family. She was at a photographer’s studio in Isale-Eko, Lagos Island, last week and a new cameraman offered to take her photograph but she refused bluntly. Asked why, she said, “When the man looks through his camera, he sees people upside down and I didn’t have any underskirt on.” See what I mean?

It means your husband is even better. At least he wears his own underpants.

My friend, you haven’t seen anything yet. Sometime ago, when he noticed he was putting on weight, he decided to visit Quincy Jones’ in Opebi, Lagos. “Exercise will also kill all germs in the body,” advised the pretty aerobics instructor. My husband was quick to respond. “Yeah, but how am I to get the germs to exercise? Do they do aerobics?” What an embarrassment! I stormed out of the gym in anger. But, I shouldn’t have done so because immediately he left the gym, unknown to me, he headed for the national television studio for a live adult quiz programme. I still don’t know what made him think that he had the IQ for such a competition. Oko mi Adio was asked who invented high heels for ladies. You know my husband’s answer? “A pretty girl who was constantly being kissed on the forehead.” I switched off the TV set in anger. When he came back, I tried to let him see reason but my husband, who is as stubborn as a he-goat, would not see any reason with me. Even if he wanted to, he is as blind as a bat. The last time he went to the optician’s, he was asked how many lines he could read on the vision chart. My husband opened his mouth as wide as ‘a basket,’ as the late Fela would say, and told the optician, “I can’t see any chart, not to talk of lines!” But he knows where his mouth is! He has never missed a meal. Neither has he missed my body contours. Another day Oko mi Adio sat dejected, without his glasses, in the bedroom. I knew something was wrong. I asked him what the matter was. He said he had lost his eyeglasses. “Why don’t you look for them?” I asked. Do you know what my husband said? “How can I look for them when I don’t have them?” I said, Oko mi Adio, you are a disaster! He said I should not worry. At bedtime, come and see my husband in his silk pyjamas and his thick bifocal lenses as he crept into the sheets. Asked why he was wearing his glasses in bed, he said they would enable him see his dreams come true and the bifocals, especially, would assist him in reading road signs, in case he had to drive in any of the dreams! The other night, he just woke up from his sleep panting and shouting ole! ole! (thief! thief!). I asked him what the matter was. He said he saw somebody who looked like Abacha chasing him with a dane gun. But why did he shout thief and not assassin? He said I should excuse him to go back to sleep and ask him (Abacha) what his mission was! Two weeks later he had another nightmare. I woke up only to see the whole sheets wet. I thought his bed-wetting had relapsed but Oko mi Adio shamelessly admitted that he had just finished ‘business’ with his former girlfriend in his dream. What business? I was mad! I called him names, Gongosu, Edidare. He, too, was mad with me. He called me Bojuri, Amebo. He was so piqued that he threatened to commit suicide. I encouraged him the more by driving him straight to the Bar Beach because he said he wanted to end it all by drowning. He was on the beach for what looked like eternity. I asked what was holding him back. Oko mi Adio was nonplussed. He said he had just remembered that he didn’t know how to swim! Can you imagine that? This chartered idiot will kill me one day with his stupidity.

Is he also absent-minded?

Look at you! A man is burnt to death and you are asking if his moustache survived the inferno. I’m already fed up with the imbecile. Chinyere, my friend from Ngige State, asked me yesterday what I intended to give my children this Xmas and I told her that if my husband doesn’t change his ways and stop embarrassing me, I’d get myself a second-new husband and thus give them a brand new Tokunbo father. And I mean it.

And I bet that your Oko mi Adio may even congratulate himself for the good luck of having another sharer of the burden that is you.

Adio, My Husband first appeared in TELL December 22, 2003 under the title, Wanted: A New Hubby for Xmas.