The Ten Conversations

There are several conversations I would happily and willingly never, ever, have again, if it were up to me. I am tired of answering certain questions about myself, my background, my name, my race, my beliefs, my boyfriend, or lack thereof. I would love to be able to use this medium to officially tell all Ye “Aproko Ninjas”, to please MYOB- Mind Ya Own Business, but I know that that will never be.

Therefore, I hereby proceed to outline all the conversations that I never want to have again, in the hope that answering all those questions here and now will save me from ever having to repeat them ever again. So here goes:

1. My name is Weyinmi and no I’m not Yoruba. My full name is Oritseweyinmi. It is Itsekiri, and yes, I am aware that it means ‘watch my back’ in the Yoruba Language. Every third Yoruba person I have ever met in my life (and having lived in Lagos trust me I have met plenty) has told me so. So please feel free not to repeat that particular piece of information to me. I already know.

2. My name is WE-YIN-MI. It is three syllables. How hard can that be to pronounce? Please refrain from calling me any of the following; Wah-yeh-me, We-hi-n-mi, or Why me. I especially cannot stand it when people call me Barbara. My last name is Barber, unless we are in a formal/professional setting, please call me Weyinmi. It is my name and I have no problem with it. If I am not you Aunty, please don’t call me Aunty, even if you are three years old. If I am not your Sister, please don’t call me Sister, even my brother doesn’t call me that. Also, I checked my birth certificate a while back, and I am quite certain that I saw none of the above written as prefixes before my name.


3. No. I don’t speak my language. Or my mother’s language. Or any of the indigenous languages spoken in any of the Nigerian cities I grew up in, and I am deeply ashamed of this fact. There is no need for you to make me feel any worse about the matter by quizzing me about it. I know it is a totally disgrace, and I still think that some day, I will wake up rapping in Itsekiri, singing in Delta Ibo, and Soliloquizing in Hausa. Till that day, please give me breathing space about the matter.

4. I am from Delta State; I also have ancestry from Sierra Leone. It is a long story and I never feel like talking about it.

                                         

5. I only have one sibling. Yes, that means my parents only had two children. Why? Well I really don’t know you’d have to ask them. Maybe they were trying to be the poster children for birth control, or maybe, just maybe, they were satisfied with having a son and a daughter and didn’t see the need for any more. We may never truly know.

6. No, I didn’t break my arm as a child. If you have any questions about my genetic make up, you can ask the big man upstairs. Please don’t ask me. Believe it or not, I actually didn’t make myself or get to choose what I’d like to look like. None of us did. So asking people why they look the way they do is just impolite.

7. I may or may not have a boyfriend. If I do, he is none of your business, unless I think he is and then I will freely and gladly tell you all about him. If I don’t, it is none of your business, unless I think it is, and then I will freely and gladly tell you all about it.

8. I don’t do favorites; as a result I don’t have a favorite colour, book, author, actor, actress, ice cream flavor, musician, genre of music, TV series, movie, website, designer, or anything in particular. I love many variations of different things.

9. Yes. I am a deeply spiritual person. I love to talk listen to and talk about ‘The Word’ of God, and I strongly believe in the power of speaking/praying in tongues. I am very, very far away from perfect, but I believe in living right according to the bible’s instructions. That means; No cheating/stealing/doing dodgy deals/fornicating/lying/telling dry jokes (Oh wait, that’s not a sin? Well it should be) etcetera, etcetera. I am trying really hard to make heaven here, and I’m sure many of you out there are just like me. What? I don’t look like it? Why? What do believers look like? Oh I see. Hmmm. I’m going to need to dedicate an entire blog post to fully address this issue, maybe I’ll do so, sometime in the future.

10. If you have any conversations you never, ever want to have again, please feel free to let me know about it.


Cheers.

A lesson in Feminine Behaviour

I am not usualy a Monday night blogger. I seem to prefer to release my thoughts sometime around Friday afternoons or early evenings. There's something about the weekend that brings forth fresh doses of inspiration. However, I was motivated to write this particular post because I saw that there was a need to correct certain misconceptions that many men have about the female folk. Yes, I am aware of the fact that no blog post could capture concisely all the false impressions men have about women, or vice versa. I however intend to limit the content of this post to one specific issue. Why women dress the way that they do.

Listen up guys, you need to understand that while yes, it’s true that women enjoy being complimented about the way we look by men, the real reason why we spend a fortune, an obscene about of time, and uncountable hours in the markets, malls, boutiques, online, scouting for new tailors, and generally priping in front of a mirror is indeed far more complex.

I will boldly affirm that there are three major reasons why women take such care with their appearances. Not all of them have to do with looking for a boyfriend/husband.

I set out below to state and make attempt to explain in a comprehensive manner, what I call the ‘Big Three’ motivators behind a female’s fabulous outfit:

       Women Dress to feel good about Themselves:
                         

                                

The truth is, there are a lot of beautiful women out there. If you’re petite, dark skinned and cute, there’s always a voluptuous, light skinned beauty round the next corner, whose looks may be at par with yours, but who you are likely to feel intimidated by because she represents a type of beauty that is so vastly different form your own.  One way you can outdo her (at least in your mind) is through your impressive style. In other words, if you feel you “baffed” up more than her, you’ve won, no matter how much prettier than you she is. Besides, nothing beats the feeling of walking into a room full of people confident that you look good and are appropriately dressed for the occasion. Feeling like you’re not has the tendency to wreck havoc on your self esteem, no matter how fashion unconscious you consider yourself.

 

        Women Dress to annoy/intimidate other women:

Most of the time, only another woman will know when she sees you exactly what brand of expensive weave you have on, or that those ridiculously high heels with the bright red under soles are $650 Christian Loubouton’s, or that the suit you’re wearing is a custom made Chanel, and that the purse swinging from your shoulders is a limited edition Chloe Paddington Bag.

The moral of the story, most women will admit, is that it feels good to oppress other women.  All women have experienced at one time or the other the satisfying feeling of having another woman stare at your amazing hair do/wristwatch/jewelry with envy. A few bold ones will even come up and ask you where you got yours, you smile confidently and depending on your mood tell them the truth, of claim to have developed fashion amnesia-you’re so sorry but you simply can’t remember. Then you spend the rest of your day with an extra bounce to your step.

                    

        Women dress to impress men:

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Yes. Sometimes women dress to impress men. It really is that simple. No long explanation required.

Cheers 

How to Spot a Bad Idea

“Never hold in your farts, they travel up your spine and into your brain, and that’s where bad Ideas come from”

                                     

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

A Case of Mental Stalking

I have an unfortunate habit of people watching whenever I find myself in a public place. It’s just my thing, some women love jewelry, some 28inch waist length Brazilian hair, yet others, anything their boyfriends love. Me? I enjoy mental stalking.

For the sake of clarity, I will set out to explain my definition of mental stalking. It is the art of watching total strangers on the street, in fast food restaurants, at the cinema, church, weddings, funerals, or any other public place and making up stories in your head about their lives; Who they are, where they are form, why they have a funny looking hat on, and so on.

Now, let me tell you, metal stalking is an art, and like all art forms, it requires a certain amount of talent, which after careful training can be fine tuned into a skill. It’s not easy coming up with anecdotes about people you never even spoken to. You have to harness your powers of creativity. It also requires a high degree of subtlety when glancing at people. You don’t want to be caught ogling red handed, else you be mistaken for a crazed, lonely weirdo who has no life; or even worse, a thief. You know how paranoid we Nigerians can get, especially those living in Lagos. Being caught staring at someone, can lead the ‘staree ‘to the illogical conclusion that the ‘starer’ must be the leader of a gang of robbers who haunt people down at social gatherings. Most especially if the ‘staree’ considers his/her self to be a person of means and high social standing.

You also don’t want to be caught staring because let’s face it, at the risk of sounding hypocritical, it’s just plain rude. I mean who really wants to be out some where having a blast, or in a state of worship, or pretending to weep at the funeral of a 99 year old great-grand mother, and look up and see someone you can swear you’ve never seen before in your life gazing intently at you. Let me tell you, no one does. Yep. Not even me. Go ahead, call me charlatan, I understand. Truth is, its just plain creepy.

One day, I went for a wedding. I had woken up that morning with absolutely no intention of attending the event. I hadn’t even known about it. I was in the kitchen trying to whip up a heart attack on a plate, i.e English fry-up breakfast of eggs, bacon, and sausage, when my mum strolled into the kitchen and casually informed me that my third cousin twice removed; or something to that effect, was getting married that morning. Good for her I thought, but what’s my own? Until I realized that that was my mother’s way of saying she expected me to go with her. Some people who know me know that I am not a huge fan of weddings. Especially weddings of people I don’t know, whose guest lists naturally comprise of their friends and family members that I have never met. I find such events to be extremely tedious and boring. So I grumbled and mumbled, whined and moaned, but my Mum was having none of it. Two hours later, I found myself walking into the church in a peach colored dress and silver heels; everyone else, including my mother was dressed in the wedding colors of green and gold, so I looked totally off. Strike one.

Then, the wedding march started and all arose for the bride as she walked in. I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the cousin I had never met. Then finally I saw her, resplendent in a strapless, blinding white dress with a heavily protruding tummy that the empire waist line cut failed to hide. Watching her walk down the aisle was quite nerve wracking, I was afraid she was going to drop at any second. Looking at the faces of the guests around me, I could see that I wasn’t the only one who was thinking the same thing that I was, which was that, it appears orthodox churches are a lot more lenient these days. Many Pentecostal churches would never have allowed it. Why, a strapless dress in church! Who’d have thought?

Anyways, an hour and a half later, we are at the reception, the bride thankfully has not yet gone into labour and the MC is trying in vain to keep the jokes flowing. Unfortunately, many of his gags come out sounding extremely awkward as they mainly revolve around the highly sensitive issue of the couples’ first night. It is quite obvious to all that they have probably already had many nights. All this after the grooms’ best friend was called out to give a speech about how the couple met, but ended up rambling for fifteen minutes about how the bride is such a good and disciplined girl, with high moral standings from a well brought up home. Strike Two.

                                            

Then, it is the lady who baked the cakes’ turn to describe the inspiration behind her design. The cake is predominantly green, everyone knows green usually symbolizes fertility; there is no need to pray about the couple’s fertility as we can all quite clearly see that the marriage is already fruitful. Another awkward five minutes is spent by the cake maker, trying to focus on the tiny splashes of gold on the cake, and how that symbolizes wealth and prosperity, and so on and so forth. Strike Three.

At this point, I am bored. I can’t help it. I start to mental stalk. My eyes move around the room searching for interesting subjects. They settle on a young adult woman with an amazing looking natural fro. Back then, I had been seriously contemplating going au naturel with my hair, so I was fascinated by any woman I saw rocking a natural do. Ironically, the few minutes I spent looking at her were not spent thinking up tales about an imaginary pot bellied boss who had a crush on her. I was actually trying to visualize my self in that hair style, and to figure out whether or not that was her natural texture, or if she’d had it texturised, when it happened. I got caught. I watched for a split second as her eyes met mine before I quickly looked away, she gave me that “are you a total psycho?!” look, then tapped her friends and pointed me out to them. I could imagine the conversation that they would be having at that moment. What on earth is wrong with that girl? Do you think she might have a few loose screws? Could she be your boyfriend’s crazy ex? I had been totally busted and I was mortified. I had to spend the next few hours seated across from them and putting up with their nasty stares until, finally, the reception was over and we could leave.

The moral of this story?

If you want to be a mental stalker, you have to make sure do it with style, grace and finesse at all times. That way, if you get caught, you can simply brush it off, ‘What? Oh no sorry, was actually looking at that piece of artwork right above your head’ for example would be a very valid excuse.

Then again, you can simply choose not to engage in it at all.

Quick Question: I hear there’s Peruvian and Chilean hair now, ethnically speaking, what’s the difference between a Chilean, a Brazilian and a Peruvian woman? Aren’t they all the same race? Just wondering.

Cheers

Shelter & The City

The city of Abuja is a most unfriendly town to newcomers. Trying to find an apartment here feels a bit like looking for a four leaved clover; or trying to find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Just when you think you’re almost there, you look up and realize you still have a long way to go.


I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of Real Estate “Agent’s” in this town, they string you along in a continuous state of hope while bleeding you dry of your hard earned cash along the way.

At the bottom of the agent’s food chain are the ‘touts’ who hang around street corners and under leafy trees that line the quiet streets of Abuja. They have no offices or complimentary cards, and more often than not, have never even come close to seeing the “fantastic” places that they promise to show you, all in a bid to lure you out to their hang outs.


Now because you long deeply for a little spot to call your home, you convince yourself that they may have something good to offer you. You pick them up, and drive round in circles as they make calls on their cell phones, then, somewhere along the way, you end up picking two or three scruffy looking characters who all claim to know the person, who knows the person, who may know the person, who once used to live three streets away from the actual agent of ‘The Place’.


You put up with their body odor and disturbing habit of shifting just a little too close for comfort because you’re hoping that maybe this time, you will be lucky.


Eventually, after wasting a good amount of your time and racking up a fortune in Taxi fees, you get to ‘The Place’. And discover it is an abandoned building surrounded by three feet high weeds, with no electricity or running water, at the end of a lonely looking Close.


The Middle level agents are those who work for registered Real Estate firms. They usually will have a means of transportation and their clients are mainly retired Civil Servants looking to make some extra income off their government acquired property. If you’re lucky, you may end up scoring a place with them. If you are really patient and are willing and able to embark upon a six month or more waiting period as they wait for a vacancy to open up from among their clients buildings. They are usually totally clueless about any properties available ‘To Let’; that are not located in one of the ubiquitous, former civil service quarters that are found on every street corner in Abuja.


Then, at the very top; are the cream of the crop agents. They refer to themselves as Quantity Surveyors or Professional Estate Managers and work for high end property developers and construction firms. They drive around in shiny SUV’s and have three cell phones, two personal assistants and a professional pen holder. They have no time for middle class, entry level, government employees searching for one bedroom apartments in the heart of town. Unless you are a young female who's willing to meet up with them after hours in a dingy motel somewhere in that part of town. They are too busy making hefty percentages off multi-million naira serviced apartment rentals, and sales of government approved, multinational construction firm built mansions in choice areas.


In the end, I am starting to believe that it takes a small miracle to end up in a semi-decent place that you can call home.


If I sound at all bitter, it is probably because I am you see. After months of being manipulated by touts, pushed around by the middle level agents, and totally ignored by the cream of the crop. I am just around ready to take radical action. Starting next week, I think I will take to the streets and begin to march around town with a placard on my chest saying “WILL WORK FOR FREE HOUSING!!”


So do not be surprised if you happen to pass by a major intersection, and you look up and see someone who looks a lot like me standing in the middle of the road. I may be trying to get the attention of passers and drivers-by who look like they may own property.

If you’d rather not come over and say hi, you have my permission to cross to the other side of the street and pretend like you don’t know me

I’ll totally understand



Cheers.

A Weekend Perspective

I had quite an interesting weekend; it all started when I snuck out of the office a little early to catch a flight. (I sincerely hope my boss never gets to read this)


I rushed home, gathered a few things and hailed a cab to the airport. Any one who knows Abuja knows that going to the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport from town can feel like you’re travelling across state lines. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had escaped the insane rush hour traffic and got there in record time. That was the best part of my journey.

Entering the Local airport, I felt like I’d stepped into a war zone. Arms and Legs flailed every where, children cried, men frowned and women sulked. It was everyman for himself as hundreds of people struggled to escape from Abuja for the weekend. Harassed airline staff struggled to keep up with the demands from their customers, a ‘Chiefy looking man’ (you know the type now) yelled “Do you know who I am?” to someone in a uniform, as airport touts ran around the place making copious amounts of money doing dodgy deals.

                                                       
Welcome to Nigerian Airports. The last time I’d been there on a Friday, I’d been among the crowd struggling desperately to secure a ticket. This time around, I’d been smarter and wiser and booked an online ticket in advance. So, I confidently walked up to the counter, checked in and collected my boarding pass. Then off I went to the waiting lounge, where I battled with a major decision for the entire hour I spent waiting to board the plane; to buy ice cream, or not to buy ice cream, that was the question. I considered the fact that I’d just recently placed myself on a healthy eating plan (that’s the hip new word for diet) and eventually common sense prevailed. I’m proud to say I acted like and adult didn’t get the ice cream. Someone please clap for me! *Insert Smiley*

An hour plus later and I have arrived in Las Gidi.

It is my cousins wedding tomorrow and I am on the Bridal Train. I need to get my beauty sleep as I have to be up early the following morning. However, as is usually the case when women get together, I end up staying up half the night first with my Aunts and then with my Mum catching up on all the latest gists and family gossip; Those Krazy Kardashian’s ain’t got nothing on my clan, trust me.

Then its 6am and I have to get up. Thankfully, we got to the church on time. I have to say it was soo much fun getting to see so many of my cousins, aunts, uncles and friends. The Bride looked gorgeous, the guests had a blast, and the food amazingly enough did not taste like rubber chicken and firewood as is usually the case with “Party Rice and Meat”. I guess the caterer didn’t have a choice; her fees cost the equivalent of a brand new car. Kai! Weddings are expensive sha.

I have to say, all in all, it was quite fun, aside from having to employ CIA like tactics to avoid the creepy looking, semi-tipsy guys who go around hitting on bridesmaids at weddings. For some weird reason, like over affectionate aunts and tacky gift bags, they seem to be a fixture at every wedding.

And when I got home and tried to go to sleep and realized I couldn’t because my little cousins wanted to show me their year book and tell me about all their friends at school, I didn’t mind at all. They are so sweet, and who knows when next I’ll get to see them.

The next morning is a blur as I am up by 5:30am and out the door half an hour later to catch my 7:30 am flight which surprisingly boards and takes off exactly on schedule. Again I tried to sleep on the plane but realized that I couldn’t, so decided that I would do so when I got home, but then ended up engaging in random gist with my flat mates. You know the type now, that kind that you walk into and intend to spend just a few minutes, and then you realize its three hours later and you still haven’t changed out of your travel clothes. After taking a short hour long nap, it was off to my friend and H.O.D baby’s’ naming ceremony. I didn’t catch the naming, but I met the reception afterwards.

The Baby is adorable and his name is Emery

Got home around 5pm and started a nap that lasted the whole of one hour till my flat mates woke me up with their screaming by 6pm. Apparently, the Big Brother finale show had started. For some odd reason I still haven’t quite figured out, I really got into all the excitement (even though I never really watched the show). Then it was off to bed and I slept.

For real this time.
Like I said, not a bad weekend at all

*Want to use this opportunity to congratulate my Cousin Nkiru and her brand new husband Femi. Hey! Maybe you guys will end up working in the same hospital and be the next McDreamy and what’s-her-name? (Her’s man’s a Doctor; she’s just completed Nursing School)


On second thoughts, as I recall all the major drama that TV couple went through, I’m thinking, then again maybe not.



Cheers

Life at a Funeral

Everyone who is my friend on Facebook, a contact on my BB Messenger, or a follower on Twitter knows all about my recent mini mid-mid life crises. I have been lamenting and moaning about what I perceived for a scary and brief moment to be the end of my youth as I’d known it.

Basically I freaked out. I guess it had something to do with the recent rash of rapid changes that I’ve gone through in the last year or two. All of a sudden, I found myself part of a totally new demographic and I was scared. No. Terrified Actually. Of what? You may wonder. The truth is, I don’t really know. I guess I worried that I wasn’t ready to face the new situations and circumstances life was about to throw my way.

Someone I perceive to be incredibly wise said something about fear. He said, that the only reason people get afraid is because they face new circumstances that they have never been in before, they are not sure what the appropriate line of action should be, so they begin to worry and feel under pressure. I think that described my situation exactly.

All my thinking about life, and aging and fear and death (I know, very morbid, forgive) led me to have a sort of mini vision of what my funeral might be like.

So I closed my eyes and visualized myself as a Spirit of sorts hovering (ok, ok, actually I was just standing) beside my gravesite as the internment service took place.

I saw my grown up children, they all looked quite sad, each of them was lost in their own thoughts, each going over a different memory of their Mommy that stood out in their minds as special; my eldest daughter remembered the day I came home from the hospital with her baby brother in my arms, smiling as I gave her a peek at her new sibling, and asking if she was excited to be a big sister. She wasn’t, and for the next one year, she’d harbored secret hopes of someone mistakenly throwing the baby out with the trash.

My son, remembering that time when he was a teenager and I found out he’d cheated on a school test. I didn’t react the way he’d expected me too, with a lot of anger yelling, instead, I’d calmly sat him down and made him prove he wasn’t a totally dummy by making him read War and Peace in the Original Russian twice, and then writing a 15,000 word essay on it. It went a long way towards making him the man he was today, since then, the closest he’d come to reading a book was going over the menu at his favorite Italian restaurant.

My last born, remembering how I’d had tears in my eyes on her wedding day, as I told her that I couldn’t believe that my baby was getting married and would soon be having babies of her own. She’d had tears in her eyes too. She couldn’t believe she’d been hoodwinked into marrying her high school boyfriend whom she’d recently found out was not actually working as an engineer in Canada. The closest thing to an engineering job he’d got was operating the mechanical false teeth cleaner at the old people’s home in Saskatchewan. In fact, he was extremely broke.

                               
Some of my oldest and dearest friends, stood together in a cluster, dabbing at their eyes, together, they’ve had to bury seven friends that year. One of my good friends, DeeDee is getting very emotional, she is 99 years old and has lost total control of her bowels, at the most inappropriate moment as the minister calls for a moment of silence, she farts loudly.

My grandchildren are standing in front of their respective parents and they are extremely bored. The Nineteen year old, thinks for a moment the grandma wasn’t so bad and it was kind of sad that they’d never get to see her again, then she remembers that she is going to the movies with her friends the next day and idly begins to go through her closet, mentally picking out an appropriately cute outfit.

The seven year old, pinches his five year old sister at regular intervals when he is sure no one is watching, she smacks his head in response, and their squabbling continues unnoticed

The fourteen year old nod’s his head in rhythm to the music he’s listening to on his Super Trendy Mp3/computer/phone/wireless satellite gadget which also makes toast bread. He is listening to Piddly Diddly, winner of the hotest rapper award for the year 2085. From time to time, he mouths the lyrics to the song, he thinks he is a gifted rapper and his social network profiles already bear his stage name; Bow Chica Wow-Wow. He just knows he's going to be a world famous rapper when he grows up

The Priest tries to round up the service, he is tired of trying to swat away flies with one hand, while reciting the same lines he has had to at a hundred other funerals. He knows all the words by heart, he also knows that no one is actually paying attention aside from the light-skinned old lady who is presently digging her nose. The other old women are all partly deaf and cannot hear a thing.

Finally, it is done with and everybody can go home.

The grown up children line up to pour sand into the grave as they pay their last respects, the grandchildren hurriedly begin to sprint towards the car park, the grave diggers move closer, it will soon be time for them to finish their job and close the grave.

The Priest is helping the old ladies slowly descend the step leading down from the grave.

The Light Skinned old lady farts again

Then there is silence



Cheers