The Christmas Lesson That Made Me Never Cheat on My Wife

During Christmas in the early 90s, kids came together to build huts with palm fronds. In our community, that was when leadership skills were displayed. You went about recruiting other kids to help you put up a Christmas hut so they could have free entertainment in the hut.

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One of these Christmases, I gathered four boys of my age group and we went into the bush to cut palm fronds to erect our Christmas hut. Ebo and his group also did the same. In our community, what happened was, when the hut was erected, on the eve of Christmas and throughout Christmas, you would organize a kids’ concert, where every kid was required to present a basket of palm kernel as an entry ticket.

Kids would only come to your hut if it was big and well constructed with decorations. So throughout, I told my guys we were going to build the biggest hut, and we did. Ours was bigger and stronger than Ebo’s, but he beat us with decorations and amenities. He was so clever he designed a portion where you’d pour your palm kernel and someone would open the gate once the kernel was sufficient.

He got all the praises while our hut stood miserably alone and uncared for. Everyone made it clear that they would rather attend the concert in Ebo’s hut than mine. I was hurt. My ego was bruised, especially when the girl I was crushing on chose Ebo’s hut.

So I did what jealous people do. The night before the concert, when everyone was asleep, I woke up in the cold harmattan weather and secretly destroyed Ebo’s hut. I broke down the section where he would receive the palm kernel, I removed the decorations and tore them to pieces. Piece by piece, I stayed up until dawn and brought Ebo’s hut to its knees, washed my hands clean, and went back to sleep.

I was the last to wake up. I was in bed listening to the wails coming from the disaster. Ebo was crying. Mothers were asking who could do such a thing. Fathers were blaming it on kids from the next neighborhood. I stayed in bed laughing in my head until someone asked, “Why is Ato’s hut still standing? Didn’t the destroyers see that one?”

I went out and saw Ebo’s defeated face. His friends who helped him build it were seated on the floor, feeling dejected and lost. My dad held my hand and dragged me inside. He said, “I’m asking you only one question. If you don’t tell the truth, I’ll beat you and lock you in this room until Christmas is over. When you woke up at dawn, where did you go?”

Unbeknownst to me, my dad had seen me walk out of the door, but he thought I was going to urinate. When I kept longer than normal, he thought I might have gone to the toilet. He didn’t see me come in because he fell asleep. He gripped both my hands together with just one hand and lifted the other and screamed, “Say the truth or else…”

I started singing my confession like a canary. “It’s true, I did it. Everyone liked his and I was hurt. I’m sorry; I won’t do it again.”

Dad left me inside and went out to talk to Ebo. I didn’t hear what he told him, but later, Dad organized all the boys around, including the boys on my team, to help rebuild Ebo’s hut. When they were done, it looked more glorious than what I’d destroyed. In the evening, my dad came home with decorations: proper Christmas lights in many colors and stickers.

My own team left me to join Ebo. My hut was a ghost town all through Christmas. The elders knew I was the destroyer because my dad told them, but the kids didn’t know, else they would have ganged up against me. I was alone and lonely all Christmas. I was so ashamed I couldn’t join the storytelling and fun activities happening in Ebo’s hut.

My dad told me, “There’s always going to be something bigger than yours. More beautiful than what you have. More liked by everyone than what you hold dear. You don’t go about destroying them. You either learn from them or join them.”

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

He didn’t say it exactly like I’ve said here, but it was something along the same line. I was ashamed and deflated, but I learned a lesson, and the lesson is in what my dad said. It’s been with me until this day. It’s guided my relationship with others, my choices in life, and even the kind of woman I married. I’ve never cheated on my wife because there’s always going to be a woman who has what my wife doesn’t have.

That’s how a lesson at Christmas became a life lesson.

—Frank

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