The above is a line I stole from a friends’ BBM profile picture.
I’ve had a lot of horrible ideas in my life time, which in itself is not so unfortunate. Most people have had a few. No biggie. However, I have also had the misfortune of trying to carry out many of those bad ideas. Therein lies the problem. I tend to have an overactive imagination, as most readers of this blog I’m sure are already aware, and it has put me in a lot of trouble over the years.
I remember being four or five years old and deciding that I wanted to fly. Blame Peter Pan. All his talk about kids being able to do anything if only they just believed totally messed me up for a while there. I spoke to my brother about it and he convinced me that it was a great idea and worth a shot. In hindsight, I see that he was probably trying to get back at me for the little incident/accident that had happened the previous week. It involved a tree, a piece of string and a guava. I think he totally overreacted by the way, I mean I know he was nearly strangled to death but seriously, little girls will be little girls’ right?
Moving on, so after getting my brothers blessing, I decided that I was going to take a leap (literally) of faith and earn my flying wings.
I got my favorite towel, made it into a cape around my neck and climbed to the top of the wardrobe in the room we both shared, while he watched form his bed. “Go on” he said, with what I now realize was an evil glint in his eyes. “Jump, you can do it!”
“Yes!” I shouted “Yes I can!” I began to flap my arms while yelling “I can fly! I can fly!” then I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and jumped. Three hours later, I find myself in the hospital with a bandage round my ankle and a nasty bruise on my lip. I scream in pain as a surly nurse stabs me with an injection needle, while my brother calmly licks his Fan Yogo ice cream. He is watching my ordeal with great interest from the visitors chair in a corner of the room where he is seated. I get scolded multiple times by my parents who tell me to be more like my brother, the 'Angel child' who never did anything stupid. As I glare at him, I see in my minds eye the imaginary halo my parents have created around his head positively glowing, and at that moment, I make a mental note to myself; jumping off elevated platforms of any kind is a no, no.
Then there was the time when I made up my mind that I was going to become a health junkie. It started with the Atkins protein only diet that was all the rage back then, and ended with me in the gym at 6:45am in the morning while sane people slept. After nearly passing out on a street corner because my body was so weak form lack of Carbs (now I know why they taught us to chant: Cah-boh-hy-drate is for he-ner-gie! In Integrated Science class when we were kids); I dropped the Atkins plan like a hot potato. Soon after, I found out that the founder, Dr Roberts Atkins himself was at the time of his death clinically obese, go figure.
The gyming stopped too, after I woke up one morning in so much pain that I couldn’t move my fingers to turn on the shower for my morning bath. They literally just froze, I had to limp around my bedroom for literally half an hour (I had lost the ability to walk properly days ago) speaking in tongues before I regained feelings in my upper limbs again. I had to advise myself to take it easy, its not be force to look like Serena Williams, she got paid millions of dollars to stay that fit. I paid thousands of naira (not that it’s in any way comparable) to try to look half as fit. You get my drift?
Then, just last week, I woke up one weekday morning feeling just a tiny bit more fly than usual. I decided I needed some extra swag to my outfit to work; they came in the form of four and a half inch gladiator heels. I have to say they looked amazing, I was sure I’d be able to cope; after all, my job mostly requires me to work behind my desk. So I put on my shoes, and sashayed out the door. I hailed a cab and arrived in front of my office building feeling fresh. I noticed a few women giving my feet admiring glances as I walked in and held my held just a bit higher.
For the most part, I worked on my computer all morning just like I’d anticipated and I was fine. Then came my lunch hour, I remembered that I had quite a few important errands to run that day, so I went downstairs to get some cash from the ATM. Getting there, I was pleased to see that there was none of the usual lunchtime queue, I realized why a few seconds later when the machine informed me that it was unable to dispense cash. Darn! That meant a trip to the next ATM, in front of a bank, two streets away. I’d have to walk there, because the distance was too short to take a cab, it just wouldn’t have made sense. Yet, long enough for me to work up a serious sweat with each painful footstep I took. Finally, I got there, annoyed and upset with myself, the shoes, the sun that was so hot, the orange sellers comfortably seated under the cool shade of a large umbrella, that lady in the stall next to me who looked so calm and collected, everyone and everything in fact. And yes, my feet learnt a painful lesson, next time; take a cab, no matter how silly/lazy you look, being stylish and elegant requires that you must from time to time I suppose. I’d love to say and there lies the end of my fallacies, from now on, its wisdom all the way, but I’d just be lying to myself. I know that that mistakes are a part of life, we stop learning the day we die.
The hallmark of a bad idea however, is that your mind says no, but your body says yes.
I have vowed to never again jeopardize my health and well being in an attempt to carry out what my BFF THS usually tells me is a bad idea. Oh yeah, I always get warned, I just choose sometimes to ignore the warnings. At the expense of my body parts and my shoes.
Like I said. Never again. After all, with God all things are possible
Cheers
*BFF-Best Friend Forever
*THS-The Holy Spirit
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