I had just come back down from the third floor where Kwame, Amir and I had been trying to solve some questions in readiness for the second part of Dr Hodge’s Calculus II test today (it’s 1:37 am). My clothes had been sitting in the washing machine for a while and I remembered to stop at the laundry to transfer them to the dryer.

I was groggy eyed from lack of sleep but I still placed each item one by one in the dryer. Out came my jeans, my black t-shirts and socks from the washer I used for coloreds. The first item I picked from the white washer felt strange — I can tell every item by the way it feels. When I looked down at what I was holding, my eyes opened wide.

It was a pair of frilly white panties.

This wasn’t the first time and it wasn’t the second either. The first time it’d been a pair of black panties and the second time, I’d been graced with a pink bra. I’d completely freaked out when I unloaded my laundry basket and saw a black bra in the middle of the pile.

Some girl here in the dorms is popping her underwear in people’s laundry and getting it done for free. My whites have been mixed with panties that have been God knows where.

I wish I knew the girl who did this…

…I’d write her name on them and hang them at the entrance to Hogan Hall.

I had walked into my friend’s room to get a haircut from his roommate.

‘Hi sexy!’ someone called out. I looked up to see who it was. It was a girl, pretty and with this haute look from under the hat she had drawn down over one eye.

I’ve always believed gender doesn’t matter when it comes to doing the asking out or the come-on, but for some reason I was tongue-tied.

‘She’s talking to you,’ my friend’s roommate C prompted.

‘Hi,’ I stammered out in a croaked voice.

She walked up to me, arms akimbo, every inch the confident lady. ‘Why didn’t you answer? Don’t you think you’re sexy?’

It was as if I had no tongue. I found myself struggling with the words that formed wherever words do.

‘Er, no,’ I said after a prolonged pause in which she stared me down and I pretended to set my watch.

My friend Kwame looked amused. I could tell he was trying hard to keep from laughing out loud. I probably wouldn’t have held back from laughing if I had been in his shoes but from where I stood, things didn’t look very funny.

My heart beat wildly and I moved as far away from her as I could. I just couldn’t handle it. My face was unchanged as usual but inside I was a complete mess.

C got his equipment ready. I sat down and he fastened a black smock around me.

Just as he turned his clipper on, I heard someone say, ‘What’s your name?’

My tormentor was back. What was my name? Damned if I knew — I had forgotten my name.

‘I, I don’t have a name,’ I replied.

‘Oh really?’ a pout. ‘Are you shy?’

Deep down inside me I know I’m shy, and it’s not just with girls — it’s the same with everyone although surprisingly, I find it easier to talk to girls. Any implication of being shy puts me on the defensive and that was exactly what happened.

‘Of course not,’ I said, more confident.

‘Then what’s your name?’ she asked again.

‘I don’t have one,’ I had recalled my name now but I wanted to convey the impression that I’d been playing from the onset.

‘Why don’t you want to tell me your name?’ I could tell she was about to give up asking so I told her.

‘Azuka, A-zu-ka,’ she practiced saying it. ‘Nice name.’

‘Thanks,’ I said and pretended to be deafened by the hum of the clipper.

I never asked her name and I seem to have acquired a morbid fear of visiting Kwame’s room. Oh dear!

Update

Thus saith some one from long ago:

If the mountain does not come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.

I was at the Student Accounts window to pick my check today. Two girls were on the line before me.

One of them turned to me, ‘Hi Sexy!’

The mountain had come to Mohammed and the best I could manage was a weak, ‘Hi.’

‘Remember me?’ she asked. ‘From C’s room?’

Wahala…