Teen love goes hi-tech: Introducing pick up lines 2.0

As a father, I have always yearned to peek into my boys’ lives and know what they do with their free time. Regrettably, those boys are secretive as banks.

They prefer to keep their private matters to themselves. Well, Tuesday happened to be my lucky day. I was chilling with my comptroller when I stumbled upon Jimmy’s phone, which is one gadget that has really dodged the long arm of Baba Jimmy. As the boys were still at school, the comptroller and I took our sweet time going through Jimmy’s texts, and this gave us a clear picture of his dealings with members of the “opposition sex”.

“Shorty, 2morrow’s weather forecast depends on U,” said a message that he’d sent to Maureen, a teenage damsel who lives three gates down from our hacienda.

“It wud b cloudy if u frowned, rainy if u cried, clear if u r happy & sunny if u smile. So baby let’s have a happy sunny day 2gether,” he declared. On reading this, I quickly navigated back to the inbox to see Maureen’s response.

“Dude dat’s so cool,” she had replied, capping this mushy sentiment with a smiley. “bt R U sure dat u don’t av a chic?” She had asked. Jimmy’s answer was as brief as a miniskirt. “Hell No!” he replied, further assuring the lass that she had no competitor. “Baby, gud gals can b found in every corner of earth bt unfotunatly, the earth is round,” he went on. “All I have in my dreams is u.”

“How about Monica? Av heard she’s ur clande,” she challenged.

“My boo,” he started. “People call u by name but I’m the only person who can make ur name sound special!” he bragged. It seems poetry has gone hi-tech among teenagers in my county, and Jimmy has become quite the wordsmith. But as reassuring as Jimmy’s sentiment sounded, Maureen was not done with her Nyayo House questions:

“Na Suzy je?” she pressed, ignoring the flaming tribute. She needed further reassurance. But if she thought that Jimmy would waste time discussing clandes and associated mpango wa kando banalities, she was wrong. Jimmy doesn’t pay attention to anyone – attention pays him!

“Honey, 4 real hauna compe... Every minute with u is sweeter than the last,” he professed, conveniently dodging the contentious bit.

Now, I’ve always been fascinated by this whole mpango wa kando business. The other day, I googled the words “mpango wa kando” and guess what Google gave me? A whooping 86,700 results! Somehow, cheating has become a fashionable hobby in my neighborhood, and teenagers too have hopped into this bandwagon.

“so u av no chic?” the girl prodded on. Once again, Jimmy’s response was hectoring and full of blatant self-advertisement.

“Think big, baby, think great,” he’d patronised. “Think smart. Think like a winner! I know dats alot to think about but use dis shortcut... just think about me!” he wrote. Now that was a stupendous farce if I ever saw one but somehow, it did the magic.

“Baby, do u hug your teddy bear while sleeping at night?” he went on. The girl’s response was brief:

“Yup,” she replied.

“Can I replace that teddy bear for the rest of your life?” he pressed.

“LOL!” Maureen had replied, as if in rebuff.

“Manze niko serious joh!” went Jimmy’s response, and that’s when he earned his big break.

“Oh, I luv being luv’d by u Jimmy boy.” she replied, effectively putting a stop to the chase. “Gnight teddy bear. Luv u,” she signed off, practically leaving the boy in flames.

“Baby,” he romanticised. “The earth may stop rotating, birds may stop flying, candles may stop melting and fishes may stop swimming but I’ll never stop? missing u!” he replied, ending the text with “Gnite” and two big smileys. Phew! Now that was something for a girl of Maureen’s age. It must be quite staggering for a 16-year-old girl to handle such high-voltage ballyhoo. Even the comptroller was impressed.

“Heh! Hiyo mistari ni mikali sana Baba Jim,” came her flaming approbation. As the boy’s father, I felt entitled to some of the credit.

“Er... the apple never falls far from the tree, you know,” I bragged.

“Will he change his Facebook status?” the comptroller wondered, ignoring my braggadocio. So, I turned to the phone’s web browser and sure enough, Jimmy had “upgraded” his Facebook status from “single” to “engaged”, with Maureen following suit. So, will “Jimmy boy” stick to his new flame? Will my future daughter-in-law’s name be Maureen? Well, in this age of fluid mobile-phone affairs, where SMS make-ups are as numerous as SMS break-ups, it’s hard to predict. For now, I’ll just av to wait n c.

-Baba Jimmi with Joseph Maina

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