I don’t like dogs.
I don’t like cats either, in short, I am not an animal lover. I am just a lover of babes…
So this happened before I married my wife, Bibi; she was the one I was dating back then when this incident happened to me. They, her family, lived in a big compound in an estate in Surulere back then.
We used to tease her that her dad surrounded himself with dogs because he had just daughters, there were four of them…all girls. In fact, I used to tease Bibi, I called the dogs her brothers and sisters because of the way her father treated them as if they were human. They were four, two males and two females.
Now, her dad was one of those old school headmasters who had stayed too long abroad he spoke like an English man. He usually let the dogs roam in their compound at night… you know, to scare people away from their home and everyone in the area knew their house, everyone knew him. He was called Daddy alaja, daddy that one owned dogs.
Ok.
So he had dogs and he had daughters; two of man’s bests friends right?
I also had a best friend, Mike, he always went with me to visit Bibi back in the day. You know, you must always have a paddy for jungle, Mike was the man.
Now, let me give a proper description of Bibi’s house then, so that you’ll understand my gist.
They had a huge compound and they had all kinds of trees in the compound, you know; and we had discovered a spot where it was easier to climb the fence, hold on to a tree branch, swing to a stronger branch and gradually drop into the compound…if there were no dogs!
We were on holidays I think, no, it was actually one of those ASUU strike periods, yes, I remember. One of the clubs in school had scheduled a party right before the strike and so even though students had exited the school to be home with our parents, the guys organizing the event sent out word that the party would hold; of course at a different venue, anyway, most parties like that held off campus, even when we were in session.
Why did we go?
Think about it, we had been home for maybe two months and we were bored. We wanted to meet with one another, you know and that time, we had just got gsm phones, so it was easy to connect and spread the news about the party.
Of course, I wouldn’t go to such a party without my babe. So we had arranged that we would sneak out then we would sneak Bibi back to their house by climbing the fence, throwing meat to the dogs in the compound . We were sure once the dogs saw Bibi they wouldn’t bark.
Me, usually, whenever I was going to see her back then, I would have been calling from a mile away, “I am almost at your house, o. Go and chain your dogs, go and put them in their kennel. I don’t want to be bitten by any stupid dog, o.”
That night, as Bibi snuck out of her house; me and Mike were waiting outside in Mike’s old beetle, the one his father dashed him when he entered Uni. We went to the party, had fun…then left the party at about 3.30am or there about.
Unfortunately for us, we encountered MoPo. Mobile Police stopped us at a junction and took everything from us. They made us do frog jumps and gave Mike and I heavy slaps. They didn’t do anything to Bibi, she was crying and begging them. They released us, maybe after like 30mins of begging and because of the wahala we decided we would crash in Bibi’s area and drive home at dawn.
At Bibi’s Estate, we knew the guards and we had told them we would be coming back late, because we had given them ‘something’ to buy their cooperation, earlier, they just opened the gate for us to pass.
As soon as we approached the area, her father’s dogs just began to bark like they had seen a ghost. We could hear them from afar.
Chai! What is wrong with these dogs?
So when we finally got to the spot where we would help Bibi scale the fence, the stupid dogs had converged there and barking and growling and…fada!
I told Bibi, “Tell your brothers and sisters to stop making noise or they would wake up your father.”
She tried to calm the dogs but they were just barking like crazy, so we threw bits of left over suya that we kept for them into the compound and they became quiet for a while; Bibi climbed into her compound and I was meant to follow because you know… Bibi was meant to have calmed her barking brothers and sisters, plus we had also given them suya…so I climbed with confidence over the wall, caught the first branch… and that was when wahala began!
Ok, so you see the branch was not strong, once you catch it, you use it to swing yourself to another branch where you can now climb down the tree. You know, the branch would drop once your weight rested on it…
Maybe the dogs didn’t like the suya or they decided that Bibi was not worth the trouble or there was something about me they just wanted to chew on!
These dogs began to bark like…I’ve never seen dogs go crazy like that.
The came to the tree I was still dangling from and were barking their lungs out; as they barked, they tried to climb the tree. I’ll forever be grateful dogs cannot climb trees!
I literally shat in my pants from fear because you see one of those dogs looked like Cujo…you know Cujo, that devil dog in that old movie…it was like that! There they were below snapping at my legs just a few feet above their heads.
Chai! And my mother warned me…my mother warned me, ooo
These dogs kept trying to leap to get me and tear me to pieces!
What did Bibi do?
She kept whispering loudly, “Calm down, they don’t bite…”
I didn’t know when I began to shout, “You should be telling your relatives to calm down, not me. I am hugging a branch that could break any minute and you’re telling me to calm down. Who is barking? Who is making noise? Tell your family to calm down!”
At that time, I made up my mind never to date Bibi again. I swore that if I got away that night, I would never step in their house ever again!
I was not a thief, these stupid dogs had been seeing me at least for months and yet they were barking like idiots!
Hummn.
Her father came out!
Ha, you know that old saying, the gist you don’t want father to hear, it is father that will proffer solution!
Anyway, the man came outside and Bibi disappeared inside!
He came to the tree I was and saw me dangling like a ripe mango for easy picking.
He began to speak grammar-“Who are you?”
“My name is Fred, I am your daughter’s friend Bibi, we go to the same school…please sir, I am not a thief.”
“What are you doing in my tree at this ungodly hour?”
The dogs hadn’t stopped barking o, they still were snapping at my legs…so all the grammar the man was blowing, my life was still in danger.
“Daddy please, I am not a thief, I went to party and I wanted to crash …”
“Silly boy, my dogs will eat you up”
Oh God, help me, please, I promise I will not do this again…
Ase the man was playing with me…
He just said, “sit!”
All four mongrels just stopped barking and sat!
Ol’oun gbo! As in, fem!
By this time my arms were aching, my chest was exploding, my legs, I just dropped like a ripe mango and the dogs were just looking at me like mumu!
Hummn.
The man just said, “Silly boy, you could’ve been chewed.”
Chewed! I could have died!
I didn’t speak to Bibi for the rest of the period we stayed at home and even when we resumed, I gave her 10 yards. I could have died!
But I love the babe, I was the one who went to apologize again…we are married today and I still don’t do dogs or cats…no. We can’t ever be friends after that humiliation!
Her father’s dogs died one after the other from old age, I was told.
I never went for their funerals.