Men only: How to survive being home with your family

One of my editors recently put up a Facebook post about corona and couples.

‘Some marriages in this country only survive because of children and the fact that said people are apart, even when they live together,’ he wrote.

‘There are couples in this town who loathe each other. They can barely stand to look at each other, let alone speak to each other.

The chap leaves at 5am and comes back at midnight after eating mutura, soup and beer at the bar.

He basically goes home to crap, sleep and shower (the next morning). No twa twa! Sasa self-isolation (ya corona) inasema wapendane; na kusema kweli, hio haiwess fanyika.’

Simon and Boke, our able resident counsellors, probably disagree. And the duo would give such a couple myriad ways to resolve their marital difficulties.

But at ‘Men Only,’ we do things differently. How does such a man cope in these days of quarantine, with a woman he may have no interest in getting closer to?

1. Change your sleeping patterns

If midnight to 5am is your usual sleeping time, increase that by three hours – because, unaenda wapi? According to sleep researchers, 8 hours of sleep decreases your appetite and improves your memory and immunity. Besides, the longer you sleep, the less time you get to spend with her!

2. Keep walking!

After breakfast, you can take a long walk (not a run, because that will return you home faster). Walk until you can’t walk anymore, in any direction, rest, then slowly stroll back to your house.

Five health benefits of such walks are that they burn calories, lower blood sugar, strengthen the heart, ease joint pain and boost your energy levels.

Two more benefits are that you’ll come back home in a much more improved mood, no matter the sourpuss mood you left in after fighting over breakfast.

And walking actually extends your lifespan (unless she decides to entomb you in a septic tank, then not all the strolls in the world can save your sorry behind).

3. Take your cave back

It is important to create a ‘man cave’ where you can have some privacy — although if you have kids, this is your chance to actually get to know important inner things about them.

You can ask them questions like ‘How old are you?’ and ‘Date and place of birth?’ just to break the family ice.

But if you need to throw one, or all of them (plus the maid) out of their bedroom to create your ‘man cave,’ feel obliged. This is now your refuge against the She Bear roaming outside, threatening to ‘corona’ you! In your ‘man cave,’ you can play X boxes (if you are retarded) or read ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King, an epic book about some humans after an apocalyptic virus wipes out 99.9 per cent of humanity.

You can also take time to randomly explore the Internet (because who is ‘working’ from home?) and discover all sorts of quirky sites like www.fatefulday.eu (that told me I’ll demise on a Monday at 12:19am in late September, at the age of 61, like E. Hemingway).

4. Back to basics

LIVE football may be at a standstill, but you can still watch re-runs of great soccer games, like I did recently, a Champions’ League 4/4 classic (Chelsea/Liverpool) that took me right back to that sphincter-tightening night in the mid-April of 2009, to a defunct sports’ pub on Kaunda St.

Since you are determined to use this time NOT to fix your relationship, sleep on the couch. It will transport you quarter a century back to your days as a sofa surfer and college sufferer, aye, and make you appreciate the phrase ‘kutoka mbali’ even more.

If it all gets all too much for you, please do not under any circumstance try to pack the partner (and kids) into the car and go to her ushago! Then in the dead of night, drive back to the city and then when they call, say you contracted the corona, and are in self-quarantine for a month.

Ciao!

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