Do you know those things you keep saying or have said in the past, “Mimi siwezi, kwani mimi ni mwanamke!” but end up doing them? Well, I must confess it was either my life or ze zing! But I know many of you won’t believe me but isokay! Ze Lord is my witness!

So I live near Karen. I can actually walk to Karen Shopping Centre from my place. Or maybe I live in Karen. Okay basi, let’s say I live off-Karen to please my haters. To be on the same page, when I say Karen Shopping Centre, I mean The Hub and Waterfront not those shacks of Koitobos road.

Now, since I live in Karen, sorry, off-Karen, I live very close to Ngong forest and it is very cold. If your version of Karen is not that of a leafy suburb (Ngong Forest) please do not say you live in Karen. You guys of Karen C tupatane nyuma ya tent.

Because I live in a leafy suburb, and I cannot tell Alexa to heat up my room I contracted a big-headed cough. One that refused to go even after finishing mama mboga’s oranges and taking the bittermost CJs dawa.

But me being the Moran I know I am I said, “Cough, let’s battle! I have killed a lion what about you?” And so I tickled the devil that came with 7 more powerful devils that would simply wake me up every night, masaa za shetani to cough.

So I gave in and went to the doc who with her metallic earphones, she measured my lungs and told me I stop being a jamaa of umbwakni and take antibiotics. She asked me where I live and I was like, “Wow, this doc is a genius, she knows already that I look rich.” Kumbe she wanted to know if my Karen was cold.

She told me to relocate as my lungs didn’t sound afrobeat nor amapiano to her, it was more of a lousy jazz blues and that meant that my lungs were battling. They had furad (someone help me translate that to English).

I told her that I am married to Karen, that I was almost seeing Canaan and I cannot move further away but further inside and she uttered the saddest, most worrying words mankind has ever uttered to me.

She said, “You will need to buy a warm water bottle!”

Wait… Ndakitali, yaani you have seen me and judged that I am a lonely single guy who needs a warm water bottle? Tears of despondency cascaded down my ruddy cheeks like the River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. (At least I have used an expression I last used in Class 8 )

Me? Siloma? Siloma Ole Naiborlukunya? A Maasai Warrior? Buy a water bottle? A water bottle with a mboshori? Who does that? Which man does that? Kwani mi ni mwanamke? I hug a hot water bottle all night?

I called myself for a board meeting and I decided to buy. And because I cannot be seen by Carrefour staff buying such unmoran stuff? I called my sister who always has two copies of everything. I asked her if I could borrow hers citing that the doctor said so lest she says it loud and my folks take me for some cleansing ceremony.

She told me she could not find any and I thought, “Even my own sister doesn’t use such stuff why me?” But she told me that those things are usually not expensive I should check them in a supermarket! I was then to face my greatest fear. The bombarding question of a lifetime, “What do I tell the Carrefour staff?”

During my basketball days at Arena One I stopped by Carrefour and I spotted a lady attendant and I started. “Hii baridi si ni mbaya, watoto wangu si wanaumia? Mko na hot water bottle? She took me upstairs where a variety of hot water bottles ranging from ‘street child’ hot water bottles to ‘group of schools’ ones were displayed in an array.

I took one whose mother went to Kiriri Women’s University and hugged her and whispered to her, “Till death, do us part…”