A long, long time ago, people lived in villages that were made up clusters of houses. The farms were out in the forest where they took turns to guard their crops against monkeys. Each time a crop was almost ready monkeys would attack farms that were not guarded and the job that people had toiled for in long months would just be destroyed in one night.

Two men found themselves guarding the farms at the same time. They had enough time to share their innermost secrets in a bid to pass time. During this time, they talked about their families, property and even the hopes for the future.

They also found time to discuss and share their experiences which at one time were interesting and at time made them to shed tears to console the other.

One of the men narrated a story about an incident that had happened to him the previous year.

"I had gone out on a drinking spree, as we took our beer, I realised that it was getting late and it was raining heavily. Always, my wife makes noise about me being out until late and I knew this time, it was going to be same old story.

"As my friends concentrated on the drinking, I thought about what to do when I got home which will certainly be late in the night. I thought about the rain, but I knew she could blame me when I got home because it had started to rain late in the night.

"And then what did you decide on?" the friend asked.

"I decided to tell her a lie that she would not easily believe and I went on to drink. It was past midnight when I finally decided to go.

"My friends told to stay over but I insisted on going home because I knew my wife would ask the homestead if I had made an attempt to go home.

"It was still raining heavily but I walked into the heavy rain which was coming down heavily with hail and wind. I walked on into the forest and decided that it was time to rest.

"But I knew I was still very far from home and this could not help me. I also knew that for my plan to succeed I was not just supposed to stop anywhere because it could not succeed.

"But my friend, what had you planned at the beginning?" the friend asked curiously.

"I had decided that I would identify an anthill which was near a place that had a drinking place nearby and then call my wife’s name for a long time.

"Because the anthill would not be my house my wife would not be there, I would turn back and then go to the drinking place where I could spend the rest of the night enjoying my drink.

He said that he walked on and when he reached an anthill that was close to a drinking place, he stopped and started to call his wife’s name.

"I spent close to an hour there trying to wake up my wife who was not there and eventually decided to walk to the drinking place to enjoy my drink.

"Early in the morning, I staggered home and went on the offensive, accusing my wife of not being willing to open the door for me when I came back late in the night.

"You know women, they can believe everything when you accuse them loudly so she did not even think of what to say except apologising," he said.

From these experiences, the two became very good friends and would be seen in the village together and would always go for a drink together.

As their friendship became stronger they would spend long nights on drinking sprees and then come back home late to wake up their wives and demand for food.

After all they thought, they spent cold nights guarding the food in the farms when monkeys threatened to destroy everything.

But the two wives became tired of this cheeky behaviour of their husbands and each on her own decided that if the husband came back home late, there would be no food.

Tensions started to develop in the homes of the two friends and they started to realise that they had been outmanoeuvred because the wives were now deliberately refusing to serve them with food when they returned home late.

So one night after a drinking spree, they decided that if their wives refused to give them food, they would beat them up so thoroughly.

But even after the beating the women could not budge and continued to deny them food. But the man who had always listened to the stories as the friend narrated had a heart to heart talk with his wife and they came to a conclusion that it was not worthy anything for her to deny him food. They declared a truce and the man was allowed to continue with his drinking without any problem. He however did not tell his friend about the new development and their friendship continued as ever.

One day, the other man whose wife had continuously refused to serve food proposed that they should beat their wives even if it means killing them they should. They went home late in the night and while this one beat up his wife thoroughly, the other one explained to his wife what had happened and he started to hit empty bags as his wife pretended to be crying for help. This one who was hitting his wife could stop but the moment he heard the wailing of his friend’s wife, he could start all over again.

Time reached when the woman was dying from the beating but because the noise from the other woman continued to come, he kept hitting her until she died.
The following morning, there was an announcement was made that the man had killed his wife and he expected that the report would also include the other man. But nothing came up. Instead, he saw his friend and his wife coming to pass their condolences to him. Then he discovered how he had been cheated.