Dear Diary,

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I prayed before having a meal. Not of my own volition, mind you. It all came about because I’m hosting Jenny, a colleague whose house was destroyed by floods. I have nothing against praying for food and asking The Lord to bless those who don’t have. My problem came when she got to the middle of the prayer.

“Dear Lord,” she said, “I know this is a little off-topic, but I’d like to take this chance to ask you to pay a little more attention to my host. He’s a nice enough guy but when you asked us to multiply and fill the earth, he seems to have taken it very literally and very seriously. Problem is, he’s been putting a lot of effort into trying to multiply but is yet to see any results. Lord, if you could bless King Rehoboam with 88 children, I believe you can work similar magic on my friend. Amen.”

At first I wasn’t too mad about the prayer. Maybe God did hear it, but with America raining bombs on Iran and children dying in Palestine, I think He has more important things on His plate. What got me hot under the collar was the way she looked up at me all innocent like and asked, “What’s wrong? You haven’t said a word since we started eating.”

It’s like when somebody calls you at 3 in the morning and if you sound groggy, they ask, “Oh, sorry. Were you asleep?” No, I was out hiking, Monicah. Or the one time a colleague asked me, “How does a thermos know when to keep a liquid hot or cold?”

It was only natural that I felt the urgent need to escape as soon as I was done with supper. I called a lady I had been chatting up online and asked her to meet me for a drink. Things started well, as most disasters do, right? We hugged, found a table and exchanged the usual useless banter. I said she looked more beautiful than her pictures. She laughed with delight even though it, in fact, meant she wasn’t photogenic. She asked if I was a cat or dog person.

“I’m a human person,” I joked, before confessing I have a very large dog called Puppy.

She was a cat person, human mother to an adorable Singapura.

“Nice name for a cat,” I said.

“Singapura is the breed’s name. His real name is Mr Claws, and don’t be fooled by his tiny frame or that he’s only 2kgs. He can tear Puppy to pieces.”

I wondered if that was a joke. Awkward silence followed as we ordered drinks.

Halfway through her margarita, she blurted, “Can I be honest? I live with a roommate. He’s a man.”

“Thank God!” I said and meant it. “I thought this might be awkward but same here. Well, not technically a roommate, but she’s a colleague I’m hosting for a while.”

She shrugged. “Mine gets even better. He’s my former boyfriend.”

I almost choked on my martini. “Pardon me?”

“We broke up like a year ago, but I can’t kick him out.”

“Why not?”

“He’s an army commando, weighs 110 kilos and has the worst anger issues. I actually had to sneak out of the house to come here because he was in the sitting room cleaning his gun. But you don’t have to worry. I think I’ve removed all the tracking devices he put on my clothes.”

That’s when I excused myself and called Jenny. “You need to start praying for me like right now.”