The one that got away: Every man has one

Wednesday morning and there’s this Kate Perry song on in the car radio.

‘It was June and you were my Johnny Cash, never one without the other

And we made a pact. Sometimes when I miss you I put those records

on(and my heart goes whoa)!” Now, Kate Perry is this young ‘Eve’ musician who recently became the first human being in the world with over 100m Twitter followers ( and NOT Donald Trump, as that orange-hair orangutan likes bragging. Trump has 30 million twits following him). At third is the former American president Barack Obama with 90 million followers.

The hot Rihanna is at 75 million, Ellen the ‘Degenerate’ lesbian TV hostess at 70 million, the genius musician Lady Gaga at 66.6 million followers (whoa!) with Twitter itself closing out the top ten at sixty million (Twitter ought to ask KDF for help to boost those numbers to 100 million, lol).

“But in another world,” sings Perry, “I would be your girl, it would be us against the world.”

And that got me thinking of the ‘one that got away.’ You know, every man, every one, has one of those.

That guy or girl, had life gone another way, would have been the one you ended up with.

And, however happy you are in your present relationship, they do creep up, once-in-a-while, into that corner of the mind because, like an illegal squatter, they are hidden in a forgotten corner of the heart.

Let’s call mine ‘Wanda,’ – because if you ring her phone, maybe there is a lady in there saying: ‘Thank you for calling Wanda. Wanda will be with you shortly. Did you know ‘Wanda’ is a name of Germanic origins that means a young and slender tree? In English, it also means ‘wander’ or ‘one who wanders.’

Now you can stop wandering about the meaning of ‘Wanda,’ and let me carry on with my story.

I was young and slender, and Wanda was a fresher in college, and not slender.

She was one of those short ‘video vixen’ types with a full and curvaceous figure that looked illegal. Silky chocolate in complexion, with those seductress’s eyes that always seemed a little wet (I swear it!) and dreamy, a slightly husky voice (although those could have been the whiskey and cigarettes she quaffed in those university years) and one of those femme fatale smiles and laughter to die for.

In short, although Wanda had a boyfriend (studying pathology) in Campus, I was one (of many) who fell head-over-heels with this college goddess. We used to watch a sitcom called ‘Friends’ on Tuesdays and Thursdays together in the Common Room and crack up over Chandler Bing and ‘Smelly Cat’ Phoebe.

I introduced her to rock music, and I still remember the many nights out in clubs all over this town – from Choices on Baricho road to Wednesdays at Carnivore – ‘grooving’ to songs like ‘Teenage Dirtbag.’

Of course it came to that we began getting it ‘on’ with Wanda, once in a rare while, (my then college girlfriend was also a little in love with Wanda!), the last time being when my old man lay dying in hospital. Wanda was melancholic about it, but her sense of humour (and sheer ‘hotness’) just made it all better.

Then college was over, and Wanda went ahead to marry a car sales- man many years (ten, twelve, fifteen) years her senior in age, and got twin boys – and that is HOW she got away, forever.

Okay, so ten years ago (on my way to Saint Petersburg via Dubai) she (who had done Sociology in college) was cabin crew on the Emirates flight I was on. And she served me a lot of little liquor bottles.

And, for once, I wished I was in a class other than ‘Economy’ so we could really chat, maybe she’d sit beside me between service, because do you know how much conversation one can get in between the trolley in Economy? There was also no Facebook those days, just boring Yahoo – not fun to be in touch.

Last I heard, Wanda had left her husband and settled into some managerial job in the UAE – and I pictured her belly-dancing for an oily oil sheikh totally smitten by her.

‘Our’ Wanda.?The one who got away!?(Write me about your own ‘love cuckoo,’ the one who got away, and win a book called ‘Meet The Omtitas’. Send it to [email protected] )