Rock the Vote

If anyone ever gets a hold of my phone, I’m off to jail. Good bye. It’s been nice knowing you. You’ve all been so great. My phone is chock full of evidence against me. Exhibit after exhibit of conversations and images and videos to assassinate my character and destroy everything I have ever accomplished in life. And I know I’m not the only one.

 

A phone is such a personal thing. It witnesses all your conversations- the version you told your man about last night’s party versus the version you told your best girlfriend. It knows your bank account number and more importantly, your bank account balance. It houses the other 37 pictures you had to take before you were finally about to catch yourself at the right angle in the right light. It has the non-photoshopped “before pics” of your side rolls that you took the last 12 times you started a new diet. It’s seen the sexy messages along with the NSFW pictures of your naughty bits AND it knows who you sent them to (if you are a freak). It also knows that you copied and pasted the same pictures and messages and sent them to a second person (if you are a super freak). It knows your search history- “why do I have a grey hair down there”, “when to use their versus they’re versus there versus the” “Obama nudes” “high quality fake Birkin” “butt pads for cheap.” It knows everything.

 

A phone is the blueprint to your soul. The key to who you really are- the unadulterated uncensored unretouched version of you.

 

***

 

The first time Dayo handed me his phone and casually authorized me to look through it, I was floored. That moment is a special and major milestone in any relationship. It comes second only to the moment when he gives you his ATM card and PIN number to withdraw money and you get to see his account balance with your own two eyes. It is a beautiful moment. More beautiful, even, than a first kiss. It means, “I trust you”, “I’m letting you in”, “this is real”, “I’m all in.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I had gone through Dayo’s phone before. But I had always had to wait till he was in the shower or asleep before I could betray his trust, violate his privacy and satisfy my curiosity all at the same time. This was the first time I was actually going through his phone with his permission. It was almost four years ago (just a couple of months into our relationship) but I remember it like it was just yesterday.

 

He was driving. It was a Saturday. He was wearing a dark green shirt and jeans. I was wearing a yellow print blouse and blue shorts. The time was 7.21pm. We were on our way to meet up with some friends for dinner and drinks and we were running late.

 

He tossed the phone over to me and said the magic words, “Ronke, can you text Larry and tell him we are 15 minutes away?”

 

I picked up the phone, then paused and turned to stare at him blankly, pretending like I hadn’t already deduced from weeks of forensic investigation and surveillance via peripheral vision that his password was his mother’s maiden name and year of birth- Bolu1957.

 

“Oh,” Dayo nodded and then volunteered the information I pretended to need, “Password is Bolu1957”

 

I smiled.

 

Granted, there was nothing particularly interesting in Dayo’s phone. It was super boring. Just as it should be. His search history was : “NFL expert picks”, “Live NBA scores” and “Beyonce nude?”. Nothing spectacular.  I wasn’t mad at the Beyonce nudes. Because look- I pick my battles. And quite frankly, if he found any Beyonce nudes, I wanted to see them myself.

 

Dayo was not active on social media. He barely used his Facebook and Twitter and didn’t even have Instagram.

 

His lack of interest in social media was one of the things I loved the most about him. Even more than his thoughtfulness. And Dayo was a very thoughtful man. He was a man who cared about the little details. He was equally meticulous about honoring the little mundane moments as he was the great big momentous hallmarks of our 4 years together.

 

He planned romantic trips, made candle lit dinners and presented me with good-intentioned badly written poetry. He bought shoes and flowers and bags and jewelry.

 

Don’t get me wrong- he also hogged the remote, got into moods for no reason, sulked if I didn’t fry plantain when I cooked jollof rice, gave me the silent treatment whenever I showed up late to meet him anywhere and would rather die than let me “waste his time” by spending two minutes walking around the corner to a different store to buy something for 5 dollars cheaper. 

 

So yes, he had his flaws, but the pros far outweighed the cons. And his lack of interest on social media was a definite pro.

 

In an era of beat faces, trained waists, twerking booties, fleeked brows and general all around Instagram slayage, I was just glad that Dayo had no exposure to the #WCWs and that they could not confuse him for me. One less battle to fight.

 

***

 

Not that there would be much cause for worry even if Dayo were on social media. Dayo was a great guy and I trusted him wholly and completely. The fact that he had given me access to his phone so quickly and without me even having to ask, made me trust him all the more. Besides, he was not the kind of guy that was attracted to obvious sexiness. He liked a woman who had some mystery about her and left something to the imagination. As a matter of fact, we would always laugh together at the girls who walked around half naked.

 

And so Halloween was a time when we laughed a hell of a lot.

 

For many young women, Halloween is an excuse to dress up while hardly really “dressing up” at all.

 

I was never really big on Halloween but that Halloween, Dayo and I got invited to a party by one of my friends from Nursing school, Jessica. Jessica was a big fan of Halloween. She was the Heidi Klum of Chicago. She went out of her way to plan a spectacular party every year and I went out of my way to miss it every year- simply because she had a solid rule on costumes and I had a solid rule against costumes.

 

That year though, I decided I was going. Mostly because I had an accidental pair of super tight high waist leather pants (the accident involved online shopping, misunderstanding how to convert foreign clothing sizes to US sizes and a missed return date deadline). So, I had decided that come Halloween my super tight leather pants were going to be my Sandy from Grease Halloween pants, and Dayo was going to be Danny Zuko- easy enough.

 

When Halloween finally rolled around, I put big curls in my hair, put on my tight pants, a fitted black off the shoulder top and some red patent leather stilettos. Dayo looked nothing like Danny Zuko because he wouldn’t wear the tight t-shirt I had gotten him but we still looked great together.

 

Even in my clingy Sandy outfit, I still had the least revealing outfit in a room full of naughty nurses, sexy bunnies, dirty cops and slutty nuns… Yup, I did say slutty nuns.

 

Dayo and I laughed at the ridiculous costumes together. There was one girl dressed as a “sexy minion.” Yup, I did say sexy minion. She basically showed up in her underwear. It was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen in all my years. She was pretty enough- small and cute with big lips, thick lashes, long curly black weave and bottomless dimples. Her breasts were slightly too big for her small frame but so were her butt and hips so it all evened out. If I’m being honest, she had a nice body- petite and curvy. But that was no excuse to put on a yellow bra and tiny blue shorts with blue suspenders and call it an outfit. She had way too much boob and butt to be in just a bra and teeny tiny shorts in public. How could can anyone step out of the house with their butt hanging out like that?

 

I wondered if Dayo had seen her and what he thought. I looked over at him just in time to catch him look her over then catch my eye before grimacing disapproving. I giggled to myself.

I whispered to him, “How can anyone step out of their house with their butt hanging out like that?”

 

Dayo shook his head and laughed, “Just terrible. But hey,” He shrugged, “Anything for attention.”

 

“Yup.” I shook my head too and giggled some more.

 

Dayo feigned alarm, “It’s October in Chicago, Dude. She might catch pneumonia and die.” 

We both laughed.

 

All in all, we had a good time at the party. Jess and her boyfriend, Michael went all out. They’d transformed their home into a house of horrors- blood stained gauze table cloths, skulls and bones, bats and cobwebs and hanging skeletons. The food was super creative. They served “finger foods”- literally. Well- not actually literally- we did not eat real fingers, if you were wondering. But they did have cookies shaped like severed fingers. It was very clever. And creepy. And delicious. Creepy enough that I didn’t have any. But delicious enough that Dayo had half a dozen.

 

We played some Halloween themed games. Halloween charades- which was just charades with scary movie titles and Halloween phrases, a Murder Mystery game which involved all the guests being different characters in a mystery story and trying to figure out which of the guests was really supposed to be the secret murderer- It was Dayo- I was shocked… I mean, you think you know someone… We also played a Pass it On Ghost Story game which started out on a dark and stormy night with two high school girls trapped in a cabin in the woods and somehow wound up with them on a reality TV show throwing drinks at each other over a man. That was actually the scariest part of the story. It was hilarious. And then we did a best costume contest and everyone had to vote for the best outfit. The grand prize was a gift basket full of scary movies, Halloween candies, some trinkets and a bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

 

Jess had handed out little pencil and scraps of paper and asked everyone to write down their favorite outfit and drop it in to the small black cauldron sitting on the kitchen counter.

 

I went into the kitchen to grab myself a drink just as Jessica was starting to count the votes.

 

“Hey!” Jessica said when she saw me. She gestured toward the black cauldron on the counter. It was full of rolled up scraps of paper. “Help me?”

 

“Sure,” I hopped up on the bar stool beside Jessica and centered the cauldron between us.

 

We began unraveling the rolled up pieces of paper and placing them in neat little piles.

 

I got a few votes which was quite flattering. But sexy minion was definitely in the lead.

 

And then I saw it- two little words written in a jagged scratchy penmanship that I knew all too well. The same jagged scratchy penmanship that all my badly written well intentioned poetry came in- “Sexy minion.”

 

What?!!

 

Not “Sandy from Grease.” But “sexy minion.” Sexy minion?

 

What in the whole entire world? Dayo voted for some random chick. As the sexiest woman at a party? A party that I attended?

 

I stared at the piece of paper in horror.

 

It was like Obama finding out that Michelle didn’t vote for him in the presidential elections. It was an indescribable betrayal. And even though I just described it, it really did feel pretty indescribable at that moment.

 

I was confused. I knew Dayo. I knew him so well. We’d dated for four years. He wasn’t attracted to “obvious sexy.” He had told me so himself. He said she looked terrible, she was going to get pneumonia and die, she was doing anything for attention… apparently, she had gotten his. I mean, you think you know someone…

 

I kept my cool but shortly after our favorite sexy minion was awarded her gift basket, I said my good byes, and headed for the door.

 

As soon as we got into the car, I laid my trap, “So, who had the sexiest outfit at the party?”

 

Dayo hesitated, "Ronke..." He faltered. I saw him trying to calculate his next move. He swallowed. And then buried his face in his hands, “Awww, shiiiiiiit!”

 

***

 

We had the biggest fight we had had in a long time that night. It ended with me in tears and him promising to always vote for me- whether in the presidential elections, student council, American Idol, a wet t-shirt contest, a dance off or a chili cooking competition.

 

I forgave him eventually but I learned a valuable lesson that day or at least I had it reconfirmed- sometimes (maybe even lots of times) guys really just tell you what you want to hear just to have peace.

I also have a deeper understanding for why there are laws to keep citizens’ votes private. I get it. People’s votes should be free from influence through intimidation and manipulation and citizens should be able to vote freely as they please without fear of judgment, harassment or penalty.

 

But not Dayo… And definitely not when it comes to me. He does not have the right to a private vote and he definitely does not have the right to vote freely. His votes should be influenced and subject to judgment, harassment and penalty. A relationship is not a democracy. And in ALL things, my baby’s vote belongs to me!