Dreamscapes

Had a dream last night (or was it this morning?) that I was taking a shower. Then my alarm went off and I woke up and turned it off and went back to sleep so I could finish up my shower on time. So you can understand how really upset I was because I was still late to work.

        “What happened to you?” my colleague asked when I finally made it in.

What was I supposed to say? I overslept or over-eager killed me?

        “It was traffic.” I said lamely. Well, the traffic was definitely part of it.

        “Well, you can tell that to SB oh!” was the retort I got in reply.

        “What, you go to the Boss simply because I’m half an hour late!”

        “Forty-five minutes. And he asked for you.”

        “Just great!”

        “The earlier you speak with him, the better. You know how he hates to be kept waiting.”

I come in late once and I still manage to get in trouble with the man at the top himself. And to think he isn’t even around oh! It had to be the middle of the night in Bangkok where he was at the moment, did the man not sleep at all? Well, dumb question, the man is a machine!

As if to buttress her point, my phone started to blink like a demented doll. I stared at it in horror as several messages came in in rapid succession. From the time stamps, they had started to come in from about 7:30 this morning, only that my stupid network had somehow left them hovering somewhere, somehow! And of course they were all from SB himself.

Just in case you’re wondering, SB is short for Simon Bolarinwa and he is the Boss Man. Everyone refers to the guy reverently as SB and believe me, he is someone you don’t want to mess with.

        “Are you going to call him or what!” she asked.

Easy for you to say!

I took a deep breath and dialled his number, which he was roaming of course. God forbid that the world comes to a grinding halt simply because he is unreachable! It started to ring and just when I was about to heave a sigh of relief that he’d finally gone to bed and I would be able to postpone the moment when the shit hit the fan, he picked the call.

        “Good Morning Sir!” I said, trying to sound sharp and alert. He had that effect on people, even from thousands of miles away.

        “I am still awaiting your report on the Conocco deal.” He started without preamble. And he didn’t even have the decency to sound tired or sleepy.

        “Yes Sir, I still haven’t received their feedback yet.”

        “And you’re telling me this because?”

        “Well…I…I…”

        “Send me an official report now.”

        “Yes Sir, I…”

        “And why haven’t you replied any of my messages?”

        “I haven’t yet…”

        “Please read your messages and respond accordingly.”

        “Yes I…”

The phone went dead. kai, and he didn’t even mention the coming late thing. Of course now I have something to stew over for the next few days, knowing it would come but never knowing just when exactly.

Sha, sha, that’s how I started this Monday morning oh, God only knows how the rest of the week will pan out with such a start, and to think that it’s a new month tomorrow, I can’t start on a jinx abeg!

At some point, after talking my head off on the phone, trying to chase down the contact person at Conocco, I unglued my backside from my seat and went to the bathroom (somewhere at the back of my mind was the fact that I hadn’t read or replied to SB’s messages yet, God help me). The woman I saw staring back at me in the mirror had me cringing. I was having the equivalent of a bad-hair-day for bad hair days! I looked like a real mess and I felt worse.

Well, suck it up and grow some brass balls instead of complaining. That’s one of the more famous lines by the king of one liners himself. With that, I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders and went to plough through my day with my hair sticking all over the place and my unevenly drawn eyebrows that looked like they belonged on the cookie monster (yeah, it really was that kind of day today).

When I was finally leaving work, my phone rang (for the millionth time) and it was the Boss, again. I braced myself as I picked the call. He still hadn’t said anything about the late coming, plus there were like a million reasons he could find to give me a tongue scalding, or he could just do it because because.

        “Hello.”

        “Hi. Good job on Conocco today.”

Huh?! Did he just…

        “I’m pleased with how you handled it, well done.”

        “Wow…err…thank you!” I sputtered.

        “Now go on and make sure you enjoy the rest of your Birthday.” He said. “Many Happy Returns.”

Awwww bless, he remembered! No one else at work did. Well, in all fairness, he is my uncle so he had better remember. Wait, did I forget to mention that part? Well yeah, the crazy slave driver is my uncle. Lucky me, eh?

        “Just don’t party too hard and then turn up late for work again.”

Damn, I should have known I would never get away with that!

Oh well, Happy Birthday to Me!!!!!!! ;D