Birthday Sex

Doctors. They are the best. Or so we think. Many people believe that medical staff or doctors can keep secrets and patients easily tell them stuff they can’t even tell their spouses, sexual partners, blood relations or children.

Opening up to a doctor is so easy that almost all the time, you never think about what you are telling a total stranger who may even be your enemy’s friend and might use the information you give him/ her to hurt your interests.

We never think much about the things we tell doctors about ourselves, and how they perceive us.

But at some age, you become conscious about what you tell your doctor and wonder whether these young men and women — you will soon discover that all your doctors are younger than you — can keep secrets.

Nowadays, all the doctors in whose consultation rooms I end up are younger than me. For a man, there is something about growing old, and valuing privacy, so much so that — and whether you like it or not — you find yourself visiting a hospital or a clinic and asking to be seen by a male doctor. I have no idea whether women go through this too and so, I can only speak for myself and to some extent other men.

This year, on two occasions, or even more, I cannot remember because at my age I am supposed to forget things, it has happened to me, and by some stroke of bad luck, there was no male doctor on duty, and I had to be attended to by female doctors, who are younger than me, whom I talk to in an avuncular manner and then I decide what brand of medication I will not accept.

There is that age when you know what works for you and what does not. It is a certain age when some people might consider you arrogant but doctors might see you a nice patient who makes their work easier. They might even consider you bright, very bright, without realising that all you have is experience. A lot of it…

Ideally, I am at that age when I know what I want, wherever, and if it is at the home front, starting from the bedroom to the kitchen and anywhere in between. I always laugh at (young) men, especially the newly married ones who eat, in every sense of the word in any Kenyan language, what they are given at any time and not what they want at their own time. “So, did she say you can have tea with sugar this week or the advisory is just for today?” I always ask, much to their chagrin. I taunt some of them at work, and from the looks on their faces, I can tell there is a foreign hand in that decision to have or not to have sugar. Their looks betray them.

Could I be past that age when I have to make decisions based on the whims of another person, or those of her friends who probably “read” about sugar some where and how it affects men’s performance and shared it and now I have to live up to it?

There is a certain age at which one can tell what a (young) man is going through just by looking at his shoes or his shirt. There is an age at which you can tell a (young) man that his shirt was chosen, or infact, paid for by his spouse, and 12 times out of ten when I point that out, I am always right.

I was also at that stage when somebody could actually see through me, and rightfully tell that I was not being truthful, or what was going through my mind. I used to wonder how that was possible. My father was very good at that and he put it in such a way that I had no room for arguing otherwise.

It was not easy for me to tell that this man had gone through this too, or that he was wiser because he had lived longer than me, and gone through a lot too. Before telling him a lie, one had to think through very many possibilities, and sadly, he could see through them, and looking back, even if he did not say it, he did not believe me one bit.

Several years ago when I was in high school, a bee stung me on the left eye. I nursed the swelling and the attendant headache by visiting the school’s mission hospital. Oh, I was such an innocent young man and the nuns running the hospital were my best friends. Since I used to volunteer to read the Sunday missal in church, they used to allow me to use their house phone to call home, specifically my father.

The left eye healed, but then I developed a boil on the right eye just when we were going for a mid-term break. My father took me to an ophthalmologist friend of his who prescribed medicine, but still, they were wondering why a minor thing such as a boil had to be treated by an ophthalmologist.

Some years later, I started having eye problems, and I called my father from the nunnery and he said that I should get permission to travel home. On our way to the ophthalmologist friend of his, he kept telling people that I was home because I was tired of eating school food, and the eye problem was a perfect excuse.

When the doctor prescribed medicine, my father told him that I do not need glasses even though that is what I would have preferred. He bought the medication, but he told my mum and aunts and uncles and his mechanic and anyone who cared to listen that all I wanted were eye glasses, because I have seen other children in school with glasses. I got glasses several years later, when I was in college, half the world away from him.

At times you might think that he did not care, but he sure did. He was a man who could decline to buy you what you thought was so important in your life, but at the same when he sent you out of town, he could give you fare and just to make sure that you are safe, he added you “emergency” funds which he would not ask for even when you came back safely.

There is a certain age when you want to cover all your bases, and ensure that someone who is under your care is safe, even when you are not there.

Some people might consider you a control freak, and many a time your children might even want you to give them a break, but there is something inside you that tells you that this person needs to be taken care of. I would have considered my father a control freak, but looking back, he was just too caring, extremely caring till the last minute considering that while he was on his deathbed, he kept giving my siblings and I instructions…”Make sure you pay the phone bill before the deadline. Do not fail to pay the electricity bill. You will realise how that home can be dark when there is no power…Have the workers been paid…Make arrangements and pay them this week. Do you have money for your dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow….”

All our answers were in the affirmative, then he reminded us “it is getting late and this town is not safe, so you people have to leave and your sisters need to sleep early.” Whenever I was venturing out, he always told me about my glasses, or rather frames, which he said were the type thieves like and can easily grab from my face. I think that evening also, he talked about them. For the last time.

Before I go on and on about how this glasses thing runs in my family, I need to point out that there is a certain age when you get to know the sad truth that dying is not a problem. Living is. My father understood that so well, and he had wanted us to understand it too.

My daughter is having eye problems, and we visited an optician about three weeks ago. She WANTS glasses and when I looked at her prescription, I knew right away that the insurance firm will not pay for them. She selected a frame and we signed the relevant papers, and went home to wait for an approval from the insurer. It came. They had declined. I knew they would decline, but she would not have believed me had I told her that she can do without them.

It is called experience. I am at that age when experience has taught me to differentiate between needs and wants…at the stage when I have learnt so much from experience…at that age when I know that my parents were ever right when it came to decisions about me and my siblings.

Once, I wanted new school shoes, so I did so many things to the pair I had. I thought my father would be moved, and he would get me a new pair. I was wrong. He said nothing about them, and I would have thought that he would feel embarrassed that his son had such shoes. He was not.

For a man, there is a certain age when embarrassment is just another long word that many young people cannot spell correctly. It is an age when so many things matter less and you can wear shoes worth 300 euros and care less whether people notice or compliment you. At the same time, it is that age when you can rock (I hate that word) Bata rubbers worth sh 500 and still have the same swag.

It is a stage when you know your needs and your worth — when you can wear a fuchsia-coloured shirt, a yellow cardigan, a baby-pink sweater and not be bothered about what over conceited and narcissistic self-appointed male fashion critics can say about your choice of clothes because you know that your shoe lace is more expensive than the clothes they have on while discussing fashion on TV.

It is all about being comfortable, in your skin or clothes. It is about knowing yourself, and what you can afford without compromising your own standards which cannot be the same as your neighbours’, friends,’ or colleagues and which you should not even impose on them.

My father’s civil servant boss could never understand how he could manage to have all of us in school and still drive such an expensive car. Some of his colleagues could not even understand why he was spending so much of his energy and money on educating girls. “When I see how people treat (uneducated) women, I feel bad. I would not want my daughters to be treated that way,” he used to reply, and that is why I have eight educated hard-working sisters.

When his boss asked him how he could maintain such a car yet he had so many children on such a salary, he told him that he has repaired (he was once a jua kali mechanic) and driven (he was later a tour van driver) so many cars in many countries (he was later a pilot) and he had never found a cheaper car (he had an MBA) than a Mercedes Benz.

There is a certain age when you set standards and do not deviate from them.

Some people might see your standards as too low or too high, but when they work for you, what the heck! You set them and you can adjust them, to your liking, not theirs, but you must recognise the environment, and your limits.

There is a certain age when you do your thing to your liking and you do not have to go with the flow so — in any period. There is this unpopular opinion that men want sex all the time or they lack the wherewithal to decline any advances by long time or a one off partner. But there is a certain age when you can turn down any offers, or ward off any advances and not feel guilty about it. There is that age when you are in control, nay, in charge of your sexuality, your zip and your seminal wealth. As I wrote earlier, it is that age when you eat what you want, not what you are served.

Yeah, I think I am at that age, and today, I am a year older. How old, you may ask? Well, my age, and my weight, I only tell my doctor, no matter how young she is.