The cat that almost made me die of shame

Like they say, advice is like medicine, easy to give but hard to take. When you listen to people like me advising others about matters of the heart, you can think perfection is my middle name. On several occasions, my advice worked wonders.Be yourself, never pretend to be what you are not just to win a girls heart, never compromise your personality for anything in the world etc. Well, I half believed those words myself, till Linda, the hottest babe on campus showed up unexpectedly at my door.Living on a tight budget, we used to do our cooking on a stove behind closed doors, not for security reasons but for ‘status’ issues. Occasionally we prepared cheap food for a change from the daily black tea and chapattis that ruled our menu. On one of those days, with a couple of other broke buddies, we prepared cassava bread and peanut stew with silver fish. I carried my share to my room where I would feast in peace. With an experienced hand, I cut a piece of the elastic food, moulded it with a potters expertise and made a hole in the middle of the dough and scooped the sauce filling the hole making it look like a crater lake on a century old volcanic mountain. I let the aroma of the tiny fish hit my nostrils before my tongue tasted the food.I then heard a soft knock on my door - thinking it was my friends; I grudgingly went to open the door while licking my fingers only to come face to face with the most beautiful creature God ever created! It was Linda, the girl with a body built for sin and a mouth that seemed to call out to me. Standing only inches away from her, my whole system almost collapsed, my heart did some awkward somersault shifting gears and my nose, discarding the silver fish smell, opened up to her Elizabeth Tailor perfume. I don’t know how long I stood there like a flag pole, transfixed, ogling at her cleavage while trying to figure out the reason for her visit. I woke up from the trance when Linda asked if she could come in. I remembered the poorer than a pauper’s meal that camped on my bedside stool! ‘Just a minute,’ I said, closing the door in her face. I went inside, grabbed the plate and shoved it plus some dirty underwear, a baseball cap and some toothpick tin recycled into a saltshaker under the bed.I hastily swept the place with my eyes and opened the door. She sat on the bed pressing her hands together like a repentant sinner. “I need a favour from you,” she said. I was silent like a judge had imposed a gag order on me. Before I could ask what the favour was, my neighbor’s half starved pussycat came in the room with full curiosity. It went straight under the bed pulling out with its teeth the hidden plate of food half decorated with a pair of dirty boxers.I shut my eyes praying the ground would just open up and swallow me. The Elizabeth Taylor perfume still lingered – confirming Linda was still in the room. The embarrassment can’t even be measured in kilos and that incident will stay with me forever.