The First and Last Time

_{Photo by Artyom Kabajev}

My dad has never been the type to flog or punish us in public. He is a quiet man that also doesn't like drawing the publics attention to himself, so depending on how much we messed up, he'd either ask us to go inside with him so that he could flog some sense into us, or wait until we've fallen asleep and then unleash the wrath of his mighty cane on us.

I know flogging a kid who's deep asleep in the middle of the night isn't really safe to do, but it was very effective because it made us think twice before committing an offence.

But even though my dad is a quiet man who doesn't enjoy drawing attention to himself, there was this one time he actually did punish me in public, although it was during night time.

On that day, I had left home early in the morning and had only returned later that night. Both of my parents had been worried sick as majority of my friends didn't know where I had gone. In my defence, I had gone out with some of the older guys to do some menial labour, not because I needed the money but because I wanted it.

Unfortunately, we didn't get paid that day so not only had I left home all day, I had also returned with no proof that I had indeed gone out to do something productive, so I immediately knew I was in trouble. I remember when I got home that night, the tone my dad had used to ask me to go inside immediately told me that I was in for some ass whooping, so I refused and instead began to plead with him to forgive me.

All pleas fell on deaf ears of course as the man was already upset and had made up his mind to punish me. So refusing to go inside, he asked my elder siblings to catch me, and I ran. Now I was little, but I was fast, so they couldn't catch me. But then I got tired and went to rest at one of my dad's friends shop, not knowing he too had an idea of what was going on.

So he had caught me and brought me to my dad. But he had refused to leave and instead chose to punish me himself,which was more than a relief for me because I prefer him punishing me than my dad doing it and the reason is because a stranger or an outsider would be afraid to go extreme in other not to hurt me, while my dad wouldn't care because after all, I'm his son., he can break and fix me anyhow he wants.

So I ended up getting punished outside, this man had me doing military punishments. But as expected, it didn't last long and I was soon set free and asked to go do the dishes. That to me was the first and last time I got punished in public.