When I first started dating my wife, I was eager to impress her, so I told her as many fascinating stories as I could about my checkered past. This worked; she was moderately impressed, at least at first. Like most people, I only have a couple of world-class stories in me and she soon realized that she would have to listen to these over and over again for the length of our acquaintanceship. To her credit, she eventually decided to marry me anyway.
Before our wedding, my wife made me promise her that no matter what, I would continue to follow my dreams. She had seen too many people living bitter, resentful lives by playing things safe, she said, and she didn’t want that to happen to me. Assuming that she didn’t mean my long-time dream of dating Minnie Driver, shortly after we got married, I told her that I was finally going to write the book I’ve had going through my head for the past several years. This was all well and good until I informed her that researching this book would involve traveling to Africa.
I lived in Kenya several years ago and while it is a tremendous country in many, many ways, I tended to get mugged a lot there. When I say that I got mugged a lot, I mean a lot! When you read the statistics that say that in such and such a city, somebody gets mugged every thirteen seconds, they are probably talking about me. Over the two years that I lived in Africa, I was robbed ten times. In my defense, only two of those times were violent or dangerous, but I have to admit that they make great stories and over the years, I’ve had a tendency to play them up a bit.
Especially to people I’ve tried to impress, like my wife.
To her credit, my Mrs. F hasn’t actually changed her mind about letting me go to Kenya next summer to research my book, but she has been biting her lower lip a lot every time a news story about Africa comes on TV. The world seems to be conspiring against her, though:
Conspiracy evidence #1 – Animal Planet. I unthinkingly paused in my channel-surfing one night on a documentary on tropical parasites. It was so fascinating that it pulled me in and before I knew it, I had spent 20 minutes watching footage of intestinal tube worms crawling across people’s eyeballs and listening to a narrator discuss how all food and water and most air in Africa is teeming with these sorts of parasites. My wife was sitting next to me on the couch and I turned to her to ask a question. She looked a little green and suggested that Whose Line Is It, Anyway might be on another channel.
Conspiracy evidence #2 – CNN. Of all the soft targets in the world to go after, terrorists decided to go after Israelis last month – where else? – on the coast of Kenya. My wife bit her lip even harder and simply said that I should go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid being mistaken for an Israeli. About a week later, we learned that the only airfare to Kenya we can afford is being offered by El Al, the Israeli airline. “You are taking a satellite phone with you, next summer,” my wife informed me. I tried to explain that carrying an expensive piece of electronics around Nairobi with me would get me mugged faster than dangling money out of my pockets, but I don’t think I helped my case.
Conspiracy evidence #3 – The Movie Morons. For the past several years, every time I go to the movies, I’ve been followed into the theater by a family of idiots. Sure, they look different each time, but I know that it’s them, anyway. These are the people who either need to have the movie explained to them or feel the need to explain it to each other and carry on loud conversations of the “WHO IS THAT, AGAIN? ISN’T HE MARRIED TO THE LADY FROM THAT SHAMPOO COMERCIAL?!” variety. Because of this, my wife and I rarely go to movies anymore. Over Christmas, we decided to take a risk. I was happy that because it was snowing heavily outside, we had the theater almost to ourselves. At the last minute however, a middle-aged couple came in and said directly across the aisle from us. Unfortunately, the first preview of upcoming movies was for Tears of the Sun, an adventure movie featuring Navy SEALs, set in Nigeria.
“WHERE ARE THEY?” the lady bellowed, as angry Bantu warriors poured onto the screen, shooting at Bruce Willis and shouting in Hausa.
“AFRICA, I THINK!!” her husband yelled back to her.
“IT LOOKS DANGEROUS!!” she continued. (Heck, why not have a conversation at this point?)
“SURE DOES,” he replied, “THIS SORT OF THING HAPPENS OVER THERE ALL THE TIME!”
After a few minutes, having exhausted themselves, the couple took a break and rested until they could spoil the climax of the actual movie, but the damage was done. My wife didn’t actually say anything about any of this, but I notice that the Adventure Channel has been programmed off our television.
