By Tony Masikonde

In the last couple of weeks, it has been damn cold. Even the coastal towns where holidaymakers make a beeline to have sun and tan is equally cold.

To make matters worse, the MET department has the audacity to remind us that ‘winter’ could go on for a month! So where does that leave senior bachelors like Frao and Mike? Well… Frao and Mike belong to the school of thought that at this time of the season, it’s not only enough to dress warmly during the day, but you must also sleep warmly at night.

When I had them chatting over this matter, I was initially at a loss, wondering why someone would need to be told to sleep under blankets in this weather. Isn’t it rather obvious?

They gave me a condescendingly look. The kind that I give my daughter when she tries to sneak lollipops and ice-cream in the shopping basket after we have had a prior MoU about no sweet things that could exacerbate her throat infection.

“So you want to tell me, Tony, that you are so far removed from the plight of lonely bachelors yet you only got hitched the other day? These are the sorts of guys we elect into Parliament and the next day, they have called movers to transport them from Eastlands to the leafy suburbs of Spring Valley,” Mike scoffed.

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Please stop your early morning bile!” I implored.

Frao who had until this time maintained some measure of decorum, opened the Pandora’s box.

“Tony, I’m going to explain to you slowly as if you are a five year old”. The first sentence clearly meant that I was in for some rebuke.

 “When an adult talks about an extra blanket, you should know that we are not talking common blankets.

Otherwise why would someone like me, with enough money to buy my entire village blankets, be worried about one blanket?” he posed derisively.

This is when it dawned on me. These gentlemen were talking in parables. This reminded me of a day we were watching my beloved Arsenal suffer a hammering at the hands of Chelsea, oh, sorry I meant Didier Drogba.

A certain gentleman briefly joined us that cold evening, looked at the score line, and whined like you would expect of any other Gooner. He quickly excused himself saying he was going to pick his jacket from the car.

Moments later, the same gentleman reappeared, not wearing a jacket, but hand in hand with a curvaceous woman.  He made her comfortable, ensuring she (his ‘jacket’) was reasonably far from any other man at the table.

So when Frao and Mike were frowning about this weather, I should have remembered what the guy with the curvaceous woman referred to the weather that day, he referred to it as ‘BMW’. 

As we tried to scratch our heads searching for the link between the German car and the weather, he cried, “No, it’s not Bavarian Motor Works — it’s Baby Making Weather!”