When a man tries to make his woman happy!

Jen, my pregnant fiancé, didn't sleep last night. That means I didn't sleep last night. Not that I am complaining, because I love her more than I love my beauty sleep, but still sleep is important. If one doesn't sleep for about 10 days, they could die. But one can live for decades without a fiancé. I might love her more than sleep, but sleep is important. Life and death important. OK, I am complaining.

When I got home at 10 p.m., she decided she wanted to crunch on some potato crisps. It is very difficult to get some potato crisps at that time of the night in the streets of Huruma. But since I am a good guy, I looked and looked until I found some stashed in a dirty corner of a dirty kiosk situated in a dirty corner of a dirty alley.

Then I get home with my trophy in hand and she decides she doesn't want that anymore. She wants to crunch on some stones that pregnant women enjoying eating. How can a human being enjoy eating stones when there is food in the house? Isn't that an insult to hungry people?

So I leave the house, climb down seven floors for the second time that night, in pursuit of stones. Like I haven't spent all day working. But her feet are swollen, her back hurts, her stomach protrudes in front of her like a drum and someone messed with the volume knob of her vocal cords because she keeps yelling all the time. Maybe these stones will turn that volume down so that I can grab some sleep.

At this time of night, you can buy fish in the streets. You can buy khat. You can buy liquor. You can buy doughnuts and car spare parts. Heck, you can buy an entire car and if you manage to apply a fresh coat of paint and change its number plates by morning, then that car will truly be yours. You can even buy a plot of land in these streets at this time but do you know what you can't buy? Pregnant women stones. And Jen had specific instructions for me when I left the house. "Don't come back without them!"

So I wake people up. People who might have the information on where these stones can be found. First one says, "Go to Muthurwa. You should find some there." I go to Muthurwa. Every trader has gone home because it is almost midnight and none of them have pregnant fiancés waiting angrily for them home.

So I call someone else who says, "There is a corner in Gikomba. Somewhere under that pine tree near Otiende's Carpentry Shop. You should find the rocks there in plenty. You don't even have to buy them. They grow out of the ground for free. I hope the dogs haven't gone to the toilet on them tonight. Jen wouldn't like that very much." No. Jen wouldn't like stones that dogs have spiced up.

The next person I call explains sleepily, "Make your way to Inyahuru Market. Talks to Sue Kanyariri; You don't know Sue? She has big teeth with big gaps between them... No, that's Sue Kanyambu. Yes! That one! She will tell you where to find the stones... No I don't have her number but just go there. She'll hook you up."

It also takes me a while to realize that my friend calls Kenyatta Market, Inyahuru for reasons only he and the demons that plague his medulla oblongata at night can explain.

When I get back home, it is almost 2 a.m. and Jen is sound asleep. Like the thought of her man digging up every corner of Nairobi for her stones doesn't bother her one bit. As I crawl into bed grudgingly, she groans sleepily and moans, "Did you find the stones?"

"Yes I did."

"I ate the crisps you brought earlier. They were great. Thanks."

"So I figure you don't want the stones anymore?"

"I hate those stones. They make me vomit." I feel like I should find a face to punch. "Hey! Your feet are cold!"

I am so angry that I don't sleep for a while. And it feels like two minutes later when my alarm goes off. Time to go to work again. And the only reason why I spend the day smiling is because on my way out, Jen says to me, "I wouldn't give you up for anything in the world. You're my rock."