Monday, July 20, 2015

The Retro Journals - The Chickens in Ajah Have No Heads

Yes they don’t. Or wings or legs for that matter. All they have is fùrò!

So, we just got a spanking new caterer at work (I’m one of those lucky people who get a meal at work ;D ) and everyone, including me has been very excited about her. She’s nice and sweet, and we get loads of variety on the menu instead of the standard different shades of rice.

First day of a spanking new lunch adventure, she arrives with our food and staring right at me from the top of my delicious-looking pack of fried rice is this chicken’s backside. The first thing that came to mind was Bart from the Simpson’s and I could almost hear the chicken saying “In your face, girl!” I chalked that first incidence up to coincidence and maybe a bit of bad luck. Next day, I waited in anticipation for my meal, my mouth watering almost to the point of drooling. What do you think was siting on top of my rice and curry sauce? (even in the curry sauce, that fùrò still sought me out). And the funny thing is, each time, the chicken is always strategically placed such that the bum is always in my face, like the headless chicken is sticking out its tongue at me! After about four consecutive days, I got the brilliant idea to stealthily switch my food pack with one of the boys’ thinking maybe the lady just didn’t like my face and always deliberately gave me the chicken’s yansh. Yeah, you guessed right. That was the one time she decided to give me something other than fùrò, and the pack I stole? That fùrò adìye sure as hell found me!

You know, growing up, they used to tell us that if we ate the chicken’s bum, we would end up doing òfófó. Now, don’t ask me what that really meant because I had no idea then, I most definitely don’t have any idea now. I just know that the way my mother used to say it ehn, it always sounded like the most awful thing in the world that could happen to you. Having a very active and somewhat crazy imagination (even as a kid) didn’t do me any favors in this case because my mind cooked up the most outrageous and outright hilarious things. So, whatever it is my mother set out to achieve with that story, she more than succeeded because it put the fear of fùrò in all of us and we stayed away from it like it was the plague itself.

After about two weeks now, I have given up and resorted to requesting for beef with my meals because, call me a slacker if you must, or even Lasthma like one of my friends does, but I just feel like it would be very impolite to ask her why the fùrò always found its way to my plate. I can just imagine how that conversation would go:

Me: Errr, can I have a word please?
Caterer: (smiling her sunny smile) Yes, sure!
Me: Err, well…why is…err…you…ahem…I...you know...emmm...
Caterer: Are you okay? You sound like you’re choking!
Me: Yes I am, on fùrò!

The other day, I over heard her saying that she lives in Ajah and does her shopping from some market in Ajah and now I can’t get the picture of headless, armless chickens fluttering about in Ajah out of my head. Someone please remind me NEVER to move to Ajah!


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