The Personal Confessions of a Mad Woman

These things take time. I’m fine for a few days, a couple of weeks, two odd years, three even. Then one day I come undone, and start all over again.

 “I don’t feel my laughter inside anymore…so what do I do? I keep going back n forth, ‘cos I know I have felt it before, I’ve heard it before, and it’s part of me. It is me. And once this tunnel is past, I’ll hear it again, ‘cos it was never gone. Not for one second…”

That was my friend’s status on face book the other day and it felt like she was yanking the words from my mouth before I could even form the thoughts.

I was in that place again. Sometimes, it’s as simple as feeling like I’m sitting on the side-lines, watching life flow by, not exactly sad or anything like that, but neither happy nor joyful or live. At the other extreme, it’s like having this deep dark empty hole, like having this intangible entity in your head, all around you, sucking you in from the outside in and the inside out, it’s like having spiders crawling around in your head. Sometimes it’s this inexplicable desperation, this deep sad you can’t explain, it’s like looking out from a shattered mirror and all you see is a distorted reality. Sometimes, I feel like I totally understand what J.K Rowling was trying to describe when she came up with the idea of Dementors that suck the soul out of you. I have my good days too, my almost manically happy days that just like their sad counterparts, I really can’t explain. The only cloud that seems to hang over those blissfully happy days is the thought that I’ll eventually come down from the high and the crash is usually as bad as the good-feel high was.

I have often wondered if I was crazy (I probably am) or if there was something I was doing wrong because I look at everyone else around me and they all seem so normal, they all seem to have it all together in ways that I can’t seem to be able to. It made me wonder if, just if, everyone else was faking it, I mean, how do you manage not to get swallowed up by that intangible entity in your head? How do you stay sane every single day? How do you balance things out instead of living on the extremes?

Then my friend’s Facebook status goes, “maybe they just think or hope that if they laughed longer or harder, it’ll banish all the sad from their lives… or maybe they just know something we don’t!” So I ask myself, what could they possibly know? I wonder if we could trade our muddy spectacles for their rose-tinted ones so we could see the world as they do, see the magic they see, feel it, live it…

I remember quite vividly the first time I experienced a mood swing (at least, it’s the first episode I remember) and I was five. I remember playing with my sister one minute and the next feeling this overwhelming sadness and the need to cry and hide away from everyone. I’m not exactly sure of what triggered it, if anything, or why it started out at all but I know I’ve lived with it off and on for the last twenty some years. I’ve heard studies show that in a lot of cases, a traumatic experience could be a trigger. I have rather traumatic memories of sexual abuse also from the year I was five (what I can’t really remember is which came first, the abuse or the episode). Well, that offers me some hope because it means whatever this thing is, there’s a chance it’s not hereditary and my little girl will stand a chance of living her life whole…

I know that naturally, when we go through some life altering situations like the death of a loved one, the breakdown of an important relationship or the loss of a job, we might experience some depression to varying degrees. What I can’t explain is the unravelling that happens just because. It’s the nothing-ness that just comes for seemingly no reason. It is having twice as much difficulty getting over these life-altering occurrences as everyone else seems to. It’s getting weepy for absolutely no reason at all and being unable to stop the crying. It is living on that edge, knowing you don’t have the strength to be strong, wishing you didn’t have to have to be strong. It’s walking on this road that seems too long, thinking you don’t want to go on, thinking you can’t. It’s thinking you’ve finally gotten a grasp of this horrible thing in your head, only to circle back to the place where you don’t understand a thing. It’s the weariness that comes with fighting the same battle every day and the defeat of giving up on waiting for the day you’ll be fine, realizing it may never come, realizing ‘this really is me’. It is catching yourself thinking about doing it yet again, wondering how you’re meant to do it: right across or a thin straight line down the middle. It is trying to stop the hurting in your head and your mind and wondering why you didn’t just get it over and done with, why you didn’t just put an end to it because you’re going crazy with desperation and all you can think is please, please, Dear God please just let it stop. It is wishing you didn’t have to have to do it. It is the mind numbing fear that you might actually do it one of these days, tumble over that thin line you’ve been threading for much too long into nothingness, a week or a year or ten years from now.

That seemingly ordinary Saturday in October was one of those unravelling days for me. It’s like a wool sweater unravelling from the hem, up until the breast pocket, but not all the way. I still have the wool all around me, in swirly whorls, waiting for me to un-undone it. It was one of those days that the sweater unexpectedly got snagged on something – a nail, a sharp table edge, a memory, a song maybe, - you never really know what exactly it is – and I came undone. It didn’t make sense really. It was the same day that I completed a Book that I’d been working on for a really long time. This was huge for me, it’s my first complete book project and I’d been working like crazy the last few months, working a full time job, weaving this intricate plot, seeing things through the characters’ eyes, laughing at silly things they were thinking, bonding with them, feeling their rush of adrenaline as they meandered through the plot, I had done tons of research (I became lawyer, marks man, Jason Bourne, gyno, ballistics expert and even Ismaila the mechanic all rolled up in one), scouring the internet (if there’s some secret service agent monitoring my browsing history ehn, they wee soon send a SWAT team to my house), writing every opportunity I could get, editing, writing some more and putting everything into the project. The writing process was a truly magical time for me and at the point that I finished, I should have been ecstatic, I should have been on a high, I should have been popping the champagne, I should have been doing cartwheels! Instead, all I felt was this deep, crushing depression. This wasn’t just a case of exhaustion, it was like being thrown into a vacuum with the flick of a switch, it was like taking a next step and just tumbling into nothingness without warning, it was like everything you have been, just ceasing to exist in a split second. I spent the weekend crying and almost unable to get out of bed. I just didn’t get it, I still don’t. Even now, I haven’t been able to bring myself to go back to the finished book, not to read or do the editing or anything. I wish I understood why at least, it would make not knowing what to do about it a little easier to handle.  I got unravelled inexplicably, but I didn’t go all the way. That’s something, I think. It gets better. Next time, maybe the sweater will stop at the bottom pocket. Or maybe just around the middle. It does get better, until one day I wake up and maybe realize I’m all fine and this too has gone away. I’ll wake up and not be so tired and weary.

In my twenty eight on-again off-again (I’ve had my good times, I even went sober for about two years at some point without even a little ‘sad’ episode) years of living with it, I’ve discovered some things that help with handling it. One is music. I really can’t describe how worship soothes my mind when I have an episode. It’s not how you would imagine it, not like break out the Tranquillity playlist and poof, it’s gone. It’s a little hard to describe, maybe quite like the saying that peace isn’t the absence of trouble or storms but finding your calm within the storm, something like that. God bless Hilsong United, they’ve been my go-to fix of late, especially the acoustic versions of their Empires and Of Dirt and Grace Albums.

Writing has always been therapeutic for me and it helps to just write out what and how I’m feeling, pour it all out, like bleeding out the poison from my veins. Sometimes, I don’t even necessarily have to write what I’m feeling. Writing almost anything at all helps. Sometimes I write these long, incoherent letters to God (these help because, call me unspiritual if you like, but these are the times that it’s hardest to pray the words, so writing God long crazy letters are my way of talking to Him in these crazy times. These are times when it’s so dark in my head that the notion of God loving me seems ludicrous at best. It feels more like a cruel mockery on some really bad days). Sometimes I write the long crazy incoherent letters to myself or maybe even a good story. Writing just about anything helps and I’m almost always happy when I’m writing.

I’ve kept journals over the years and this might sound counter-productive but writing down all the bad actually helps me look back and see how far I’ve come and how well I’ve done. For me, it’s like writing down your prayer points and then looking back over them and seeing how God has answered them over the years. (If it still doesn’t make sense, remember that these are the confessions of a mad woman, so go figure).

Sometimes, my therapy is losing myself in a book. If I can just pick something up to read, it’ll help me forget my present twisted reality for a while. So, whether I’m writing it or reading it, a good story usually soothes me.

One thing that I’ve found invaluable is my support system; that is people who to an extent know about it and who I usually talk to about what I’m feeling or going through. I see them quite like an Alcoholic’s sponsor. Having a support system is an amazing thing, it helps you share a tiny bit of that burden and it keeps you accountable, sort of. Unfortunately, I have found out that getting that support is one of the hardest things, especially in our culture where it’s almost taboo to even mention anything relating to mental health issues, not to talk of coming out of the closet and saying you’ve got them issue thingies. It’s just not done. We’re all sane, strong, healthy people, God forbid that we’re associated with any such thing! And the Christian community, I’m afraid to say, is even worse. I’ve found it harder to talk to Christians about it than I have other people. Even when I do get to talk to my Christian friends, it’s usually in a ‘non-Christian’ setting. People have implied that I’m definitely not really saved or filled with the Holy Spirit if I have mental health issues and at some point, it started me doubting my salvation and everything I know and believe too. Someone’s said to me once “How can you call yourself a Christian and be saying you’re depressed?” This someone (who until that point had been an important part of my life) cut me off totally because he couldn’t handle it and couldn’t imagine what people would think (his words) if they knew I was struggling with depression. Immediately you even start to say the ‘D’ word, people start to scabbash and bind and cast and I’ve often been left wondering if I’m the evil spirit that is so repugnant to them. We Christians are quicker to judge and slap labels on things we don’t understand. It’s easier than trying to explain how it fits into our ideals of God and Christianity and most times, people with mental health issues  do not really feel like there’s a place for them within the fold (okay, maybe I’m speaking for just myself here, but this is from painful experience) so we try to fit in, we try to fix our un-normalness, try to fake it until we make it, but believe me, that might work everywhere else but when it comes to the mad in your head, it just doesn’t! It’s been extremely hard getting a support system going and I’m ashamed to say that I’m still in the closet to a large extent (who am I kidding? I'm in the closet in the closet!) and I doubt that the few friends in my support system even know just how bad I have it. I remember my mum once catching me reading a book by Tim LaHaye, ‘Overcoming Depression’ and the alarmed look that came on her face as she asked me why I was reading such a book. I looked at the fear and terror written all over her face and I knew I couldn’t bring myself to tell her, I couldn’t do that to her, couldn’t do it to me. I just couldn’t bring myself to share this with her, my mother. I’m not totally sure of what I was more afraid of; breaking her heart and shattering the picture perfect illusion she has about our lives (I mean, where do I start from? The abuse from all those years ago? The crazy episodes and the baggage they bring? My lowest, ugliest moments?) or making myself vulnerable, opening up my deepest, most painful wounds? Maybe deep down, I was just terrified that I would see that look of revulsion and repugnance on her face as well, that look that said I was damaged and broken, that look that said I was weak and weird and crazy and didn’t fit in. Irrational maybe, but well, that fear was there as it has always been and I took the coward’s way out and told her some dumb story about how it was just a Christian book that I’d picked up at the book store in Church. Coward! Believe me, it gets really emotionally draining trying to make people understand, dealing with the judgement, especially that which you know isn’t coming from a spiteful place, that which comes from a place of love (and getting over that rejection in itself is usually a trigger for an episode, so it’s just way easier to avoid it). People tell you to snap out of it and stop being such a cry baby, and oh, how I’ve tried! I wish more than anything else that it was that simple. I am going to have this published anonymously (if it ever gets published that is!) because a huge part of me is still very afraid and wary. I’ve learned that no matter how understanding or forward-thinking we think we have become, biases still run deep in our DNA and it’s hard to let go of notions and ideas that have been ingrained in our thinking. I know just how fickle and fleeting acceptance usually is. I’ve seen the unveiled derision, I’ve watched the walls go up as soon as people know. I’ve watched well-meaning people flounder and stumble, trying not to show how uncomfortable they are with being uncomfortable with my damagedness, how they try not to make too much of it and then wonder if they’re making too little of it. You know that whether they judge you or just feel sorry for you, it will still distance them from you, you’ll still be different. Then, there’s the resentment that creeps in from handling all that judgement and snobbery and misunderstanding, and in a way, I’m starting to pass judgement of my own on people for not understanding (the irony, eh?). It’s a constant, conscious fight not to let these other negative emotions in and not to take the path of offense (see? This thing messes with you on so many levels). I must confess that in recent times, I’ve sub-consciously started to pull away from my support system as well because a part of me just wonders if, you know, even they are getting tired of my wahala because me sef I have tire. I find myself wondering, what if they’ve had just about enough of these bouts of crying for nothing and the long winding conversations that seem to make no sense. I wonder if they just might think I’m just a spoilt brat seeking attention. Sometimes I wonder if my burden is getting too heavy for them to carry and if it’s starting to drain them as well (kai, sometimes, I worry for the sanity of my Therapist, the things I have told her ehn!). An irrational part of me wants so much to be perfect for them, I want them to see me as whole and healthy and smart and inspiring and intelligent, not the broken toy who constantly needs their help. I want to be giving and adding value to people’s lives, not just needing and taking all the time. I’m trying to work on this but it’s hard because again, those notions and ideas that have been ingrained into our minds by our culture and society. This road can be a very cold and lonely one to walk. I’ll never ever take for granted the power of someone just being there with their love, even when (maybe especially when) they don’t really understand what you’re going through.  Sometimes it’s all that’s needed and it makes a whole world of difference, just knowing you’re still accepted despite everything. It makes the fight easier to fight. Sometimes, it’s absolutely everything because it just might be the reason someone walks away from the edge.

 Another thing that keeps me off that line is remembering, even in my deepest, darkest moments, the things that matter, the things that are worth the fight. I remember during my last episode, trying desperately to hold on to something, anything just to keep my sanity. I remember starting up two lists, one for the reasons I just wanted it all to stop, reasons why I needed this overwhelming hurt in my head to end, this was my aye list for silencing the screaming in my head, getting away from that intangible entity that’s sucking the essence out of me once and for all, reasons why I had to end to it all. I do not write this lightly and I know how hard it must be for anyone reading this to understand why anyone would have the audacity or the state of mind to make such a seemingly selfish and self-absorbed decision or to even think of it. I doubt I can adequately put to words or paint a picture of the reality of such a state of mind or how totally you can get pushed over the edge or all the muddling that’s going on in your head and mind. I really can’t. But I’ll say this: it takes more than strength or will power or even a moral or religious code to walk back from that edge each and every time (at least for me). So, after I finished my aye list, I started out on my nay list and the first thing that came to my mind was my nephews. One of them turns ten in January and I recently started up a project to write him a book for his milestone birthday (he’s already an avid reader too) and in that moment, I burst into tears and became overwhelmed with all these emotions and memories and the elaborate plans for his birthday and the letters we write each other back and forth and the silly things he does and says and the storyline I’ve been working on for his book and how we love to read together and how he tells me stuff that he’s read and how naughty he can get and….that brought me back from the edge. I abandoned my lists and I knew I had to fight one more day, just one more day this time because I just couldn’t afford to give up, not just yet…

Well, it’s been a journey. It’s been twenty eight years since that first day I ran and hid in my mother’s wardrobe and I’ve learned a few things here and there. I made a conscious decision to have a relationship with God when I was about nine and I know my faith has been at the core of my still being – well, - being. In Taya Smith’s voice, my Soul knows well You’re here. Even in the middle of the broken glass shards that is sometimes my mind, He’s always right in there, getting cut and ripped along with me. In the midst of the spiders crawling around the corners of my mind, He’s there, holding me through the worst and the best of it (hey, I have my good/sane/normal days when I’m just the girl next door!). And I know that if while I’m in this broken, damaged body, I never get to be rid of this thing, I can draw comfort from knowing that He’ll always be right here in my crazy head, through the times that I’m aware of Him and the ones that I’m too far lost to even feel Him. I know (even in the times that my circumstances say otherwise) that He’ll always be right there with me, every single time I walk on that awful edge, every time I sit on that thin line, wondering if I should simply silence the roaring, end the emotional torture, He’ll be there through each one and whether it’s a week or a year or ten years from now, He’ll be there through each one until maybe one day, the edge becomes a distant, fuzzy memory too. Through it all, I can say “Even when I have no song, even when the fight seems lost, even when it hurts like hell, even when it makes no sense to sing..." I know that His love surrounds me when my thoughts wage war. I’m taking comfort from the fact that if one day, the wool sweater gets unravelled all the way and I have no idea how to put me back together again, He’ll be there to make sense of the mess and maybe He’ll even decide to make something entirely different from the wool…who says I always have to be a sweater!

And oh, if there’s anyone reading this who is crazy just like me, please know that it does get better, just hang in there…

Giddi Commute: Abegi Sir

This evening’s drama was straight out of a bad Nollywood movie. It started out as the normal story, dánfó driver on Lékkí-Èpé Expressway driving nonsense. He scratches someone’s Prado Jeep and tries to escape. Mr. Prado Jeep gives chase and of course he catches us after all of two minutes. Where exactly did Mr. Dánfó driver think he was running to, what with the usual traffic on Lékkí-Èpé Express way? So, Mr. Prado catches us and steps out of his car in full military uniform. Kpekélé kpekèlè, arúgbó je gbèsè! Of all the Jeeps in Lagos, this dánfó driver went to scratch a soldier’s own! I don’t know much about the Nigerian Army but the guy’s uniform looked so impressive, he must have been a top guy.

The passengers who had been raining abuses on the driver before then became subdued and kept shut. You know how when someone presses the mute button and the TV just shuts up kpam? That’s how we all just swallowed our voices as if on cue.

The Soldier simply went to the driver’s side, pulled his door open and dragged him out by his shirt.

        “Oga abeg…” the driver started. The rest was silenced with a bone shattering slap.

Kai, I felt that slap from where I was sitting. The driver tried to fall to his knees (or maybe his knees just gave way beneath him) but Oga Soldier simply dragged him up by his shirt and delivered another slap. At this point, we all overcame or speechlessness and started to beg earnestly on behalf of the driver. The conductor went over to prostrate himself flat in front of the Soldier but mba, him no gree. Before we knew it, some minion Soldiers had arrived at the scene. Of course, a big boy Soldier like that one doesn’t walk alone. They just jejely took Mr. driver and carried him to their pick up truck and drove off with him.

        “Ah, tiè ba lóòní!” someone exclaimed.

        “The kain beat he will chop today ehn?”

        “Na where dem dey carry am go?” a woman asked.

I was thinking the same thing but was afraid of what the answer would be.

        “Ah, dem dey carry am go barracks be that!”

        “When him see Soldier again, him go run!”

        “Conductor, you no go go look for your driver?”

        “Abi oh, you no go go bail am out?”

        “Na where him wan go look for am?”

        “If he follow them, them go just beat am join!”

        “Abeg, who sabi drive for here?” That from the conductor.

We all stopped in our commiserations when it hit us that we were now sans a driver and had only just reached Ìkàté.

        “Ah, it’s true oh, how person go reach Àjáh now?”

        “Abeg give me my money oh make I join another bus.”

The pity party was over. People really weren’t smiling at all.

        “Make una no worry, we go reach Àjáh.” The conductor said.

        “How? We go fly?”

        “Abeg no waste time jàre, make we quickly find another bus enter.”

        “This man go sabi drive the bus.” The conductor said, pointing to a man on the second row.

All our collective necks swung to look at the man. The man sef swung his head to see our would-be savior only for him to find all eyes on him.

        “Me ke?!” he exclaimed.

        “How you take know say him sabi drive?” someone demanded.

        “Abi you don become Octopus Paul?” someone else said.

        “Na wetin be that?” some other guy asked.

        “Na where you for dey when them dey play World Cup?”

        “Which one consign me consign World Cup?”

        “See you, them never born you that time.”

        “Shey you even sabi who Obasanjo be?”

        “How I no go sabi that one?!”

        “If Octopus Paul still dey alive, he for tell us tey tey say PDP no go enter again!”

        “Abeg stop that nonsense! Him for warn us say na like this e go dey be!”

Were these people for real at all?! We were stranded here by the side of the high way and they’re arguing over Octopus Paul! Lagos really is a crazy place.

        “Oga, abeg come drive the moto commot for here.” The conductor implored.

        “How you take know say I sabi drive?” the would-be savior asked.

        “I see as you dey control the driver.”

Say what? What does that even mean.

                “True oh, im dey tell am to cut him hand that time when he jam that soh-ja!”

As in seriously! So that’s all that’s needed to qualify for the driver’s seat?

In a heartbeat, everyone on the bus was swearing by their mothers that they just knew that the man was the black reincarnation of double-oh-seven himself.

        “I sabi drive the bus but na Igbó Efòn I dey go oh. After that one you dey on your own.” The man finally conceded.

        “Oga, nothing do you, abeg help our situation.” The conductor begged.

        “Na wetin you wan make I do? I no go go house?”

        “Chairman no worry, I go settle you bus money reach Igbó Efòn, just hep me drive this bus reach Àjáh abeg.”

Long story short oh, the conductor psyched the man sotey he agreed to drive us all the way to Àjáh without jamming anyone’s car on the way! This is Lagos after all, what else is new under the sun?!

Bestie of Life

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! This can’t possibly be happening!

I was having a heart attack, cross my heart and hope to die. Really. I refreshed the Internet Explorer window again and tried to open the word document. I got the same error message that the file I was trying to open was corrupt and could not be opened. I ejected the flash drive and tried it on another laptop. Same results.

Kai! T’emi bami!

That wretched stick of a thing had somehow gobbled up my project and I was due to show it to my Supervisor. Unfortunately for me, my supervisor is stationed at Idi-Araba, not Akoka, so I always have to make the dreaded weekly visits there to meet with him. And if you had a sadistic supervisor like mine, you would realize that you didn't even need a world-people flash drive for him to do you strong thing. In fact, my predicament would have him doing cartwheels in glee.

There was only one person that came to mind in that instant and I called her up immediately, knowing she would have a solution sha.

                “Bimpe.”

                “Hey what’s up!”

                “I need your help.”

                “What’s the matter?”

                “Please tell me you’re still at home.”

                “Why, what’s wrong?”

                “My stupid flash is corrupted! And I have to show Ajayi my Chapter six today!”

                “Wow! “

                “Everything is on my desktop at home. I just need someone to send it to me.”

                “Okay, let me see…”

                “You’ve left already abi?”

                “Yeah but don’t worry about it.”

                “Ah, how will you do it now?”

                “Shebi you can access your emails from Idi-Araba now?”

                “Yes but I don’t want to put you out like that oh, I’ll just rush back and pray that there’s no traffic.”

And Dr. Ajayi will gladly kick me out of his office for being late.

                “Don’t worry, I’ll email it to you.”

                “Are you sure?”

                “Of course! Don’t worry about it.”

                “You’re simply the best!” I gushed, relief washing over me.

                “Haha, and I know it!”

                “Thanks a million, I owe you big time!”

                “Yup you do! Give me like twenty minutes.”

                “Okay, oshey ore mi!”

                “Laters.”

What ever would I do without that girl? Bimpe is simply the best friend and sister anyone could ask for. She is the Martha to my Mary in the practical sense of it. She is as organized as I’m scatter-brained and the thing with my project is just one of many instances where she’s come in and saved the day. Who went to face off my Landlord when he suddenly decided to disconnect me from power supply? Who plans our shopping and cooks for the week on weekends? Who helped me pick out the dress to wear to my class Dinner? Who helped me sort things out when my junk-heap of a car was burgled and my laptop and handbag stolen? Me, I just had a total meltdown. Who was there to kick my butt through second semester exams last year when I lost my mum? Now you’re starting to get the gist.

We had been roommates in Moremi in year three and we got along so well even though we were in different faculties. We decided to step up to the Big Girls level in our final year, so we got BQs in Ozolua and stayed just around the corner from each other. We were more than Besties, she was more like the sister I always wished I had. I had even introduced her to my clan of crazy cousins and nieces and nephews and all what not. We'd all been close growing up and had gotten in and out of trouble together. She had been a big hit with them and had been literally adopted into the mad-house. That was why I was doubly excited when Capt’n Zii, my usual partner in crime within the clan gave me gist of this road trip to Ghana. When I got back home that day, I was bursting to tell her the news.

                “The guys are organizing a road trip to - wait for it!!” I started dramatically and she laughed. I started to make dramatic drumming sounds.

                “Hope everything went well with your supervisor?” she asked and I ignored her. That one was past tense joor. I was talking legendary stuffz here and she’s bringing up Mr. Ogre.

                “Ghana!”

                “Wow nice!”

                “Yup, yup.”

                “Gee, can I come?”

                “Of course! Why do you think I’m telling you? Zii has warned me not to show my face if you’re not there too!”

                “Yay!”

                “I’ve thought the whole thing through.” I said and she gave me a dubious look. Everyone knows I’m soooooo not the planner. “We have to go by air because we only have the long Independence weekend, but we can save money if we share a room. We can also save on feeding by taking some edibles along. Then we can…”

                “Really? We’ll share a room?” she interrupted. “The both of us?”

                “Yeah. We could save more money if we got a bigger room and shared with two other people but I guess it’ll be better if it’s just two of us, I know my family, they can be cu-ray-zay!. The cost shouldn’t be too bad and I’m sure we’ll be fine. Worst case, I’ll pull the Baby-Sis-card with my Brother and get some money off him.”

                “You’re willing to let me come on a family trip?!” She asked getting all mushy. Bless her, she was such a sentimental wuss.

                “Of course! It’s going to be such an amazing trip, we’re going to have such fun!” I said literally bouncing off the walls in excitement. "It's gonna be just us, no adults or babies! Tunrayo and Derenle are coming, and the twins as well. Dare is bringing a friend as well and uncle Leke said Ireti can come, which should be interesting, what with all that drama between her and Dara! Oh God I can't wait!" I gave a silly little laugh and she laughed too, getting infected with my excitement. Then she threw her arms around me and kissed me smack on the lips.

                “I love you Boo, I’m so glad I found you.” She said earnestly.

Say what?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I pulled back from her, totally lost for what to do or say!


*An abridged version of this story was originally published here on Breakpoint.
Breakpoint is the official Blog of Connected, a Christian Entertainment and Social Networking Platform. Read up on events and activities on Breakpoint and follow @connectedlagos.

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

Giddi Commute: Navigator

This beautiful Saturday morning (aren’t they all beautiful!), I spent 45 minutes in Obàléndé waiting for the Bus to Berger to fill up. When it was finally full, the conductor sauntered over and proceeded to collect his money.

“Oga, you no fit collect money for road?” a man on the third row grumbled.

“Na for road I go pay Agbèrò?” The conductor retorted.

“So you knew that one since, you come just dey collect money?" Someone from the back row said, disgusted. At this point, I knew how the drama would go, probably ending in a I-no-get-change argument. I was about to plug in my ear phones to drown out the noise when one madam beside me upped the ante.

“Oníìranù, the time him suppose dey collect money, na that chingum geh him dey chase up and down! “ she said drawing out a long hiss.

“Na ya business?” Oga conductor challenged, stopping in his collection to face off the woman.

“Abeg dey collect your money dey go, this heat too much nah!” another passenger said.

“Abeg make I fire am! Abi you no hear the nonsense him dey talk?” Oga conductor asked.

“Ehn dey collect your money as you dey fire am nah!” the passenger said.

“Woman wrapper!” madam hissed.

“You dey jealous?” Oga conductor fired back.

“God forbid! Na your kind me I dey follow?!”

“Why you no talk nah, I for come toast you join.” Oga conductor said eliciting a few titters from other passengers.

        “You don dey crase! Olòshí! “

He finally finished collecting the money and we left the park, thank God!

The next sign of trouble was when the engine started to cough like a nicotine addict.

“Oga, this your moto go reach so?” someone asked.

“No worry.” Oga driver said. “Him dey kamkpe!”

“Abeg, if he no go reach, make we come down oh!”

“Come down for where? When I don pay for garage already!” Oga conductor retorted, ready for another fight.

“I say him dey alright, he just dey warm up!” Oga driver reassured.

That’s how we left Obàléndé and climbed on top 3rd Mainland Bridge with our kpa-ka kpu-ku bus. The thing would go kpa-ka kpù-kù, kpa-ka kpù-kù, ó-tó-gé  (I swear, the groans of that engine sounded like it was saying just that, true!), then we would go vroom vroom vroom and then kpa-ka kpù-kù over and over again. I reckoned sometime this century, we would sha get to Berger.

We were fine and dandy for a while. In fact, after you settled into the engine’s rhythm, it actually started to lull you like a child's lullaby. That was until it started to rain and we found out that our kpa-ka kpù-kù’s wipers didn't work. And oh, Oga driver was as blind as a mole too.

Unfortunately for me, I was in the first row, behind the driver, so I saw everything in HD.

“Oga, you no get wiper?” the lady in the passenger seat asked alarmed.

Oga driver ignored her.

“Abeg stop oh!” she said.

“Stop for where?!” Oga conductor who'd been spoiling for another fight demanded. “Abi you no see say nah for 3rd Mainland Bridge we dey?”

The fortunate souls in the back seats were still blissfully unaware of the wiper shebang and found something else to fight the conductor over.

“Oga, this your bus dey leak oh!”

“Abeg close your window jàre, rain get enter!”

“Na Sharatin you think say you dey? “ Oga conductor retorted forgetting madam in the front seat for the moment.

“Don’t mind them. They will be collecting money, they won’t use it to fix their vehicle. “ One woman said in disgust and other passengers agreed with her.

Ha, if they only knew! There were way bigger issues than leaky roofs on ground!

Consequently, the other passenger in the front seat became the Navigator and Oga Conductor the right side mirror.

“Small-small.” Navigator said, motioning with his hands.

“Your side.” Oga Conductor said.

“Peeeem-peeeem!” The Corolla to our left said.

With that brilliant plan in place, we made it to Ìyànà Òwòrò in one piece. Barely. Next issue was the line of tankers and trailers joining the Berger bound traffic from there. 

“We no fit stop for here?” madam in front asked hopefully.

“Madam, nothing do you. Your side!!” Oga conductor said.

By this time, the fighters in the back seats had found out about our precarious situation and had sobered up. Well, sort of.

“Oga, you no dey see? You wan jam trailer? “

“Oritse gbàmí!”

“Lord have mercy!”

“Kai, I don enter this one oh!”

“I for no enter road today oh!”

As if to add it’s own voice to the melee, the rain started to come down even harder.

“There's a tanker in front! Small-small. “ Navigator said and Oga driver stepped on the brakes.

“Not so hard!” Navigator gasped and we all screamed as we were thrown forwards like rag dolls.

In response, Oga driver stepped on the gas and we were all thrown backwards.  I cannot write the sort of colourful language that followed. Ah, I fear that I wee be corrupting the eyes of Nigerians of they had to read it on here!

In the midst of that drama, something let out a hoot that almost had me peeing my pants and all hell broke lose.

“Ah, trailer dey your right!”

“Your side! Your side!”

“Ah, Jesus I am dead!”

“Oga stop this bus oh I wan come down.”

“He dey your side!”

“Na tanker oh!”

“Blood of Jesus!”

“Yéè mo gbé! “

“Orí ìyámi òh!”

Next thing, we hit a massive puddle and the sounds of the water forcefully hitting the undersides of the bus and the avalanche of water that hit us on all sides were the final nails in the panic coffin. 

The type of mayhem that ensued was enough to cause even the sanest of drivers to lose control, not that ours was anywhere near sane to start with.

“Abeg please stop for Mobil oh, we cannot continue like this!” one passenger implored.

“Ah, we don pass Mobil since.” Someone else said.

“We don pass?! I think say we still dey toll gate oh!”

         “Ah, toll gate ke?!”

For all we knew, we were already in Ìbàdàn sef!

“Na Òtédolá gate be that in front!” someone exclaimed.

I doubted it seriously but the thought of a safe place to get off was too good to pass off.

“Abeg stop make I come down, I no go Berger again!”

“I go waka the rest biko!”

“Why you wan get down inside this rain?” Oga conductor asked.

“You no see the nonsense your driver dey drive?”

“How? The guy dey alright now!”

My head did a 360 and I stared at the conductor in utter disbelief, like really?! That was when it really hit home that we were in the hands of mad men and I joined the crazy clamour for the bus to stop.

In response, Oga driver swerved to the right towards the bus stop without first consulting his Navigator and Oga conductor and he had his right side mirror clipped off by the tanker on his right.

“Yeh, go your side! Go your side!” Oga conductor screamed, not that Oga driver could have heard him above the panicked screams in the bus.

Oga driver swerved left and stepped on the brakes.

“No stop, no stop oh! Another one dey your back!” someone from the last row screamed.

We stumbled on until Oga driver finally brought the bus to a stop beside a dilapidated filling station. As soon as the bus stopped, frantic passengers spilled out into the pouring rain. Mehn, it had never felt so good to have rain slap me in the face, I was so grateful to be alive and in one piece!