Planet Yogurt

Men are supposed to be hardcore. Don’t show your feelings to the world we were told. But there are days you feel dejected. All you need is something to serenade your heart. If you are like me, on such days, I need something to serenade your stomach. I think there’s a direct link from my stomach to my feelings. Eating mellows my emotions. It makes me light and likable.

For some, it is something as simple as pouring a beer from a bottle and watch as the froth forms on the mouth of the glass; looking into it so keenly and reflecting as if something tells you it is going to drain your sorrows. For others, it is a cigarette. A heavy puff, lock it in and the slowly let the smoke leave your system through the nostrils; it takes with it the struggles one is facing, albeit temporary. On this day, all I needed was ice-cream.

Mostly, it would be meat. Nyama choma. There’s something about well roasted meat. The golden patches that excite your taste buds. The smell that invites you to devour them meat, tearing apart the once hard meat, now so tender after being subjected to so much heat; roasted to submission. Or watching the juice flowing in between my fingers as I eat it. This had been a hot day, figuratively and literary. I had been called that I was unsuccessful in an interview I had attended a week earlier. I needed something to cool me down.

I toyed with the idea of going to snow cream. You know that old and timeless ice-cream joint on Koinange street. It has not just kept it reputation as that of the street wanes, but the architecture and furniture remained unchanged as the bars of time keeps ticking. There’s an old cone maker machines that stands majestically at the center of the premises, with the gait of an old experience, an assured hand. An old chest freezer sits below it with the glass that covers it having a few scratches that reminds someone of the days gone by. Though well concealed, with keen interest, you can see them. Just like someone using a concealer to cover the wrinkles that cover ones face as the age kicks in.

The old menu beautifully written on some wooden pallet now has a shade of black, a sign of mature wood. When you buy ice-cream here, you buy a piece of history and depth of a timeless brand. You can’t just gobble down the ice cream. You have it respectfully.  And if you live in Nairobi and you grew up in the 2000s, you must have taken someone there for a date. I did, once, but she is now married, to someone else.

I had walked from Westalnds to town. I end up at the tip of Kimathi street, at the famous Bata Bazaar. Tired and sweaty, I opted for a planet yoghurt. Wrong move! Here, I was not going to just cool my nerves, I was going to freeze them. Unlike snow cream, it is self-service. It’s an ice-cream buffet. I was excited by the different flavors but the Presbyterian in me suppressed my sense adventure. I settled for pistachio and strawberry. I almost filled my cup. Threw in some candies. It was going to be a heavenly delight.

Ooh, this was my first time in PY, and as you can image, the last time. When I got to the counter, there was a weighing scale. I was taken aback. Stupid of me considering I hadn’t thought of how they were going to measure the quantities. The gentleman ahead of me put his on the scale. I cannot remember the quantity, but I vividly remember the price: 1200 bob. My heart froze. Already. Mine was going to cost at least 500 bob. I started planning of how I will place the thing on the scale and then walk out, actually run out. It turned out to be 535 bob. Probably the most painful 535 bob I have spent this year. I kept the receipt. I still have it. I now shares and box with all the other receipts that reminds me of the days I went all out in the heat of the moment.

I sat down on sina taabu stool as I thought about my choices in life. Like this one I had just made. With the 500bob, I would have bout a whole of Lyons maid yoghurt, paid my fare home and bought roasted maize from Kamaa (you can read about him here http://wahinyakageni.blogspot.co.ke/2017/11/son-of-soil.html). The silver lining is I now know where not to take someone for a date. Never. Call me a cheapskate or whatever, but I am not going back there. Not when we can have a whole month’s supply of Ice-cream from my beloved Snow Cream for the same amount.  

As I was lost in my thoughts of my dented pocket. Some lady walked in. She sat on a table next to me and whipped out her IPhone. My I-finix churned in my pocket. Esteem issues. Texted someone then removed a small make up kit. Using the phone as the mirror, she applied some mascara. The carefully removed the red lippie and replaced it in some burgundy (men also know something about colours) one. All this time, I was thinking, this mama has just walked into this place where they even sell you the air you breathe while you eat your ice-cream just to apply makeup? When she was done, she just walked out. I was stunned and impressed. I liked her guts. I almost waked out and followed her. Two things stopped me. My broken I-finix screen ( I don’t know how it would have handled facing it’s distant cousin, the Iphone) and the thought of her telling me, ‘ I have some time to kill, you can buy me some ice cream as we talk.”

By the way, the ice cream was fantastic, I will go back there some day. Just not for a date.