THE WOMAN, THE VIRTUE
By Wande Akindiose
"Daddy, oh you are going out. Please, your food is ready and I have served it. Just eat before you go out", Mrs Dele told her husband who was walking-dressing on his way out. Mr Dele unceremoniously took a glance at the family dining table which he hasn't sat on in months and saw a bowl of pounded yam, vegetable soup spiced with dried fish, just the way he liked it. Also standing conspicuously beside the dish is a sweating bottle of STAR larger beer.
He took some cautious steps towards the table and as he sits down to do justice to the bowl of pounded yam, his wife moved forward and instead of drinking water, "pum", she opened the bottle of star and served her husband.
Mr Dele was a senior civil servant living in Makola, Ibadan with his modest family. They have three children: 2 boys and a girl. They live in a three-bedroom bungalow and they are quite popular to all their neighbours for all the wrong reasons.
Scarcely a day went bye without noise from the house. Mr Dele was not only an alcoholic but a drunk. He was always drunk: From work to beer joints. He was well known around Secretariat where he worked and Makola where he lived. Very often he won’t even come home to change before going out to drink. If he returned home by Midnight, that was too early.
Very often too, he would be too drunk to even drive home his 504 SR. It was a daily occurrence to hear shouts and fights by 1am in their house. Neighbours were too tired and fed up with them that no one intervened in their matter again.
This went on for years until this faithful day that the wife served pounded yam and star as drinking water.
As he was finishing the first bottle, the wife brought the second bottle, opened it and served her husband. He was on the second bottle when he removed his shirt and moved to the sofa. By the time he was on the fourth bottle, Mr Dele was asleep on the sofa and was woken up by 9pm to go to the room.
This continued the next day and by the fourth day, he was playing ludo game with his wife while drinking his star. .
Their neighbours were aghast that the usual midnight shouts and fights have ended.
One day, After two weeks of this "honeymoon" Mr Dele came home, his wife served food and as she was about to open the usual bottle, he stopped her. The wife who thought she had offended him, knelt down " my dear, have I offended you? Please, forgive me". Mr Dele replied, "my dear wife, you have not done anything wrong. In fact, you are the best woman in the whole world. I am sorry for all I made you to go through. Henceforth, I will not drink beer again. Not ever".
Since that day Mr Dele became a responsible man, husband and father. He later became a permanent secretary and the family lived happily thereafter.
What the neighbours didn't know was who taught the wife the wisdom she used.