The Spy Who Loved Me

My brother and I used to play a deadly game while growing up. I am sure some of you will remember that game. I still can’t understand why we indulged in it at all because it was quite dangerous but as with most of the things young people did, I guess I may never fully understand. Perhaps it was the risk involved that gave us the kicks. Who knows? Maybe we thought we could always get away with it without getting hurt or caught. And we almost always escaped being caught and the few times we were hurt we accepted our fate but that never prevented us from participating in other dangerous endeavors. I guess you could call it ‘growing up’. Yeah, we were growing up.

Growing up came with its scars though, most I can share and show freely; a few too embarrassing to divulge except on the pages of a book or in a blog like this one. As I said at the beginning, my brother and I used to play a very deadly game. It involved holding up the sharp end of a pencil or a pen on the other person’s seat and withdrawing it just before the unsuspecting person sat down but ensuring that the person knew what your intentions were so they would appreciate that they had just escaped a great danger. How sick? Which sick mind invented that game anyway?

Well, one Friday evening, while we were having our ‘after school’ lessons at home, my brother decided to play this game while I was returning to my seat from the bathroom but unfortunately he couldn’t remove the pen fast enough. We tried to ‘contain’ the damage as much as we could. We decided not to tell our parents because we knew they were going to beat us silly and because as brothers we thought we needed to protect each other but eventually, my father found out because I began to walk like I had a volley ball between my legs after a few days. My brother got the beating of his life and I was taken to the hospital where I endured one of my most embarrassing medical moments. I was 8 years old and I was scarred for life. I still hate hospitals till now.

But that is not the story.

A few years after that I noticed my Dad would crack the door of our room open first thing in the morning and ‘spy’ at my groin area before closing the door back and I used to wonder why? Some other times, the man would open the bathroom door while I am about to have my morning bath, pretending he was looking for something and close it after a few moments but not before checking out my groin area. I didn’t understand why my father was acting weird until the day I overheard a conversation between him and my brother:

Dad: Segun, se oko aburo e ma n’le t’o ba ji laaro? [Does your brother have early morning erections?]

Segun: Haba! Daddy, of course!!!

Dad: Since he got injured down there a few years ago, I have been pretty worried about him. This is why I come to your room in the mornings sometimes to see if he has morning erections.

Segun: He is fine. Stop worrying.


I couldn’t help but smile where I was hiding. It was then I understood what I thought was weird behavior from my Dad. I came out of where I was eaves-dropping and pretended I didn’t hear a thing. They also acted like they weren’t talking about me.

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This post is dedicated to my father. See it as a belated father’s day post.

Thank you Dad for all the love and care you showed us while we were growing up. If I can show my son half the love you showed us and people around you, then, I would have done well as a father.

Crayzee love!

By the way, this post was inspired by my son, your grandson, and his tiny morning erections.

Written by Babatunde Olaifa