I felt my legs weaken
under me that very minute, I wanted to jump out of my skin, I was weak...I
began to see all my efforts & hard work crumble before my very own eyes, I
could picture the tears on my mum's face, I could even paint the look of
disappointment my brother would give. I knew that nobody faced that panel and
went scot-free in the school... except you had connections, which I didn't. I
knew other people that had other people had 'runsed' their way from year one to
final year and had gotten away with it. I tried it, I just tried it once and my
life was doing a roller coaster before me.
I summoned courage and went to the
senior lecturer's office to plead my case, when I got there I met other
culprits like me and they had fished out all other courses that they had runsed
and they were already in deep problems (that "problems" is formality,
the word is shit, they were in deep shit!) . As soon as the man sighted me,
he began to scream “YOU!!! What's your problem? Should I call it
foolishness or peer pressure? I understand these empty skulls that
fell from dumbville, but you wrote well in the hall why did you want to do
this? I've gone through your records and I noticed you didn't do any other one,
you just chose to destroy your life with an elective course? Yours is such a
sorry case".
At that point I was crying
profusely, I didn't know what to say or do (as a yoruba girl, one tiny voice I
never knew existed in my head before then started to tell me how my father was
snoring in heaven! The guy was deep in sleep and he had allowed my mother's
enemies catch up with me). Senior lecturer showed me all my results and I
passed them and wouldn't be having any issues if I hadn't taken that course. I
remained there and I kept pleading and begging, the lecturer told me he could
help me but I was going to have an extra year because I would have to re-write
the course. I kept begging and he said he couldn't cover up for me, even I knew
that because he was a pastor.
I went home and all my friends had
gathered and were waiting for me...they were sympathizing with
me already, one was even crying with me. It was like I had just lost a close
relative ( I didn't even get as much sympathy when my dad died), I felt like
dying. I began to think of how I'd make the dreaded phone call to my mum,
she'll be the one to tell my brother because that one likes to behave like a
soldier. I was beginning to determine what I'd do with my life, considering the
fact that I don't have any talent. But if I had known that a song like Tonto
Dike's would get such great number of downloads even though I'd rather listen
to the sound of my generator than listen to any of those auto tuned nonsense
again, I'd have tried my hands on singing. As terrible as my voice was, it
would have sounded better than Tonto's with even less auto tune but since I'm
not popular and haven't been able to "date" any producer maybe I'll
just learn a craft like hair dressing but I hate salons, getting my own hair
done is enough trauma already or I'll learn tailoring but that would make me
one of the crazy people I curse every Saturday there's an aso-ebi party.
You and I know that only
a few tailors would make heaven, those people can be annoying. Anyways,
since I couldn't decide on any craft to learn and practice I decided that I'd
just be a full time runs girl. Its really not as bad as you think, I'll just
get two permanent rich men that would be paying my bills and I'll probably open
a shop and start doing business, if I don't get as foolish as 80% of the runs
girls around and use all the money for clothes and hair which I'm sure that's
what would have happened eventually. Listen, there's really nothing in being a
runs girl except of course if you're a virgin, as long as you're sexually
active whether with your boyfriend or other men, we're all sinners. If I can
sleep with my boyfriend who I'd have to cook for after and not get anything
except its my birthday or val's day, why can't I sleep with a man whom I can
refer to as my married boyfriend where I'd just call room service to order my
food and get loads of cash when I'm leaving (that's me convincing myself into
my newly found profession). I know what you're thinking now, what if I get pregnant...well,
I'm not going to be the first runs girl.
People before me have
done it and they've being having their way with it, mine won't be an exception.
In totally unrelated gist, there was a certain girl at the time who was my
friend. Tinuke was a runs girl and she was proud. The first time I saw lace wig
in my life was on this girl, she traveled to dubai and made the hair from
there, her own runs wasn't all these smelling 50k runs, she didn't even do
local runs. She used to travel out of the country to meet her clients (that's d
kind of runs I was projecting; I'd even make invoices and send to my clients in
advance).
Tinuke had gotten
pregnant like five times already but it was no big deal, her doctor was an
expert in getting the "excess unwanted blood away from her system before
it began to form". Sometimes she would just take some tablets and
everything would be fine but it happened that she got "hooked" again
but didn't discover until the pregnancy was about 12weeks. She took the usual
drugs and even traveled to london to meet a client. She came back after two
weeks, took a test and the baby was still developing. So she went to her expert
doctor to do the main thing, it didn't last up to 5minutes before the doctor
finished and declared her fit for the "Labour market" once again. After a while, she started falling sick and we
took her back to the hospital and the doctor said she was five months gone.
She started shouting at the doctor
who insisted that he performed the operation on her and added that she was
probably pregnant with twins and he succeeded in getting just one of them out.
She instructed him to carry out the second one and he did. Two months later,
Tinuke passed out in school and we had to call her mum to come and get her. Her
mum took her to their family hospital and the doctor said she was 7 months
pregnant and had to be placed on bed rest or she would lose the baby and her
life. That's how Tinuke had a cute bouncing baby boy after taking abortion
pills and doing D and C twice and she couldn't tell which of her clients got
her pregnant. That halted her career, and who knows it would probably have been
the end of mine too.
I began to say a prayer in my heart,
I was whining to God, reminding him of how I used to go to fellowship every
Tuesday and go to church every Sunday, I had a new dress or a new hairstyle. I
had never been more frustrated in my life. One of the girls in the room that
day wasn't really my friend, she was my friend's friend but you know how girls
are now, wannabes always famz hot girls (even though she didn't know that her
parents were far richer than mine but Don't blame her, it's cuz I have
packaging sha, dayum!) And that's what that one was always doing. As I
was narrating my ordeal to them, of how my destiny evaporated before me earlier
that day and wishing one of them had been smart enough to get a pen and send
the script to a film producer or a novelist, we probably would be rich by now,
I mentioned the lecturer's name and my friend-by-proxy's face lit up. She
hugged me and told me not to worry, that my issue would be resolved and I
wouldn't have to face the school panel.
Everybody turned to her
at once the way everyone grabs their charger and hustles for a socket whenever
they bring the light or we contribute money to fuel the gen, yes you got it
that's the picture! Then the questions started rolling in. Of course she didn't
know which to answer first so she just said to the whole house that she would
help me but couldn't tell them how.
Post a Comment