I'm straight...i promise!!!!

How the hell did I forget to tell you guys about this experience. Last year, december 21^st to be precise, Rhythm 93.7fm (a local radio station) had their yearly ‘Rhythm Unplugged ‘ show. This is one of the biggest shows around now and this edition was gathering enough momentum as it was going to feature almost all the happening acts around. A friend of mine (lets say his name is Bob) and I arranged to go, my female friends didn’t want to stay out that late cos it was an all nite thing. So, off we went. The show held at an open ground at one federal Palace Hotels, FPH in Victoria Island.

Performance after performance came and went. The show was really living up to its billing and I wasn’t missing my bed at all. I especially remember Basketmouths’ (a popular comedian) cos he was booed off the stage. Really did feel sorry for him. But this post isn’t about how rhythm unplugged went now is it? No its not.

It was around about 2.30am or so and PSquare (twin music acts, for those that don’t know them) was performing. We were getting a bit bored of their performance cos we've heard their songs over and over again in the past. So Bob and I decided to take a strole around the venue. We walked to the gate which was quite some distance, and back. FHP was built so that part of it overlooked the ocean. Really nice view. Bob and I leaned over the pavement and just looked into the waters for a while. When PSquare had left the stage we returned to our seats for the rest of the show.

There were two girls sitting just after us on the same row. Naturally we got talking. We all ended up staying back after the show cos it was kinda too early to leave. The time now was about 4.50am or there about. The four of us were really talking like we had known long before tonite. I was really wondering why they were so easily flowing with Bob and I, and occasional glances towards Bob suggested that he was thinking the same. Let me attempt to replicate the dialogue that went on between us. Their names were Tinuke and Maureen by the way.

Tinuke: So you guys are close huh?

El: Yeah. Been together for some time.

Tinuke: hmmm…how long.

Bob: For about 4 years.

Maureen: 4 years!! Mehn..thats some long time! You guys are trying o.

El: Well, you know male friendships are known to last longer than female ones. You guys quarrel over the smallest things.

Tinuke: its true sha.

Maureen: So…em…you guys live together?

El: No…we still stay with our parents.(I thought the question was a bit awkward but I suspected nothing of it.)

Bob: you guys…stay together?

Tinuke: Nope.

And so we continued gisting away. They were so easy to talk to. I wondered why all females couldn’t be more open like this. The world will be a better place!

Now, Tinuke was sitted right beside me. As we talked, she did something. She suddenly started stroking my arm. Not like a suggestive stroke, more like a friendly one. Hmm, well maybe these gurls ARE very open, I tot to myself. I let it fly. she didn’t stop there. She then raised her stroking apparatus to my cheek. Straight to my cheek!! I had to ask.

El: Umm…wotchu doing? (don’t get me wrong I didn’t want her to stop but hey, I don’t roll like that! i’ve NEVER rolled like that!!)

She quickly removes her hand

Tinuke: Sorry…I just…

Silence.

More silence.

El: what?...
Tinuke: I’ve never really been around you guys. You’re very easy going.
El: (was that the reason for the touching??) Em…thanks. You guys are ok too.

Bob and I exchanged quick glances. He had this look like ‘what was that all about?’ I just shrugged my shoulders. Then we all stayed silent again. After a while, it seemed she couldn’t hold it any longer…

Tinuke: Why do you prefer guys to girls?
El: As in…how do you mean (I was gradually beginning to make sense of it all.)
Tinuke: Well, unless you are into us girls too. Are you?

JESUS!! CHINEKE!!! ‘What the hell is going on here?’ I thought to myself with a bewildered expression on my face and Bob’s. Apparently she and her friend here thought Bob and I were gay guys. Me the guy and Bob the female to be precise. I don suffer.

El: Tinuke.
Eniola: Yes?
El: Maureen
Maureen: Yeah?...
El: Do we honestly look gay to both of you?
Bob: Honestly??
Iyabo: To us and to like 10,000 other people.
Bob: What??
Tinuke: For God’s sake the both of you have been walking around since. The way you both were leaning over the pavement looking into the water…trust me that was very romantic.

And here we were, Bob and I, thinking we were the coolest guys around! This was really hilarious. We all had a good laugh, the four of us.

P.S: i really do hope they were convinced that we are indeed straight!!

meeting her...leaving her!!!

WOW!! I've never had as much comments on any of my posts like i had in my last one. Now i really feel like i'm actually making contact with people out there. It's a good feeling. Thanks to ya'll.

Unless its already been postulated, I have this theory: ‘EVERYONE looks to meet someone to be with’. When we say things like ‘I’m single and happy and don’t want anybody for now’, we just subconsciously use the phrase to buy time, waiting for the right person to come along. Or maybe I’m just talking about myself….

Well, I’m always open to meet people. For this reason some time ago I sent in my name and number to one of these hook up programmes on radio. That night I answered a total of about 96 calls and got more than 40 messages, true! Flashers?…uncountable! A boy even called saying he wanted us to meet so we could ‘see if we were compatible’! You and who is compatible?!! Anyway, after a couple of days, I had screened all the numbers and gotten the ones I wanted to contact. Amongst all these numbers, was one particular girl that had a very nice voice over the phone. I mean ice cream nice!! It was so nice that I recorded some of our calls and played them over my music system just to hear an amplified version! I’m crazy right?....then again i AM a 'psykia case'! I fell in love with her voice! TONIA'’s voice. ( I hope she doesn’t ever read this cos this gist takes a drastic dip for the worse!!).

I was in school then and she was in lagos so all we could do was talk….for a while….a long while! Tonia and i talked for over 7 months without seeing each other! I mean we were practically dating in absentia! I’m sure we had sex many many many times, if that was possible that is!! Long and short, we couldn’t wait for me to return to Lagos so we could finally get balls rolling (not those one silly!!)

I finally returned to Lagos some time after that (some weeks ago) and couldn’t wait to see my Tonia. Yes, My Tonia! By the way we now called ourselves names like sweetheart, honeybun and such names that depict intimacy. I quickly arranged with my friend to drive over to her place on one lovely Saturday. She gave me her address somewhere in an estate in Ajah (an area in Lagos where most of its inhabitants are considered as being veeery comfortable). ‘Correct’ I tot to myself. At least she go try, going by ‘aje butter’ standards! And so my friend and I, two lone rangers set out on an all revealing trip to go see the person that gives me butterflies.

After driving around in the estate for wot seemed like forever, we found the house. She told me they were having a party at her house, her dads 50^th birthday, so once we came around the vicinity of the house it was hard to miss. We parked about 6 houses from her gate so we could see her before she us. I called her up on the phone for which must have been the umpteenth time that day. I told her to come out but she would have none of it. “I’m very busy, just come right in”. My friend and I stayed in the car for another 7mins or so trying to psych ourselves up. We then decided to go for it.

We came down and started walking towards the gate. By the time we were about halfway between the car and her gate, she called saying she was coming out. I stayed on the line asking ‘can you see me yet?….can you see me yet’? my friend was was some feet behind. I looked back and saw him slowing down. I was wondering why he was lagging, then I looked towards the gate and saw her.

Ladies and Gentlemen: incase I’ve never described myself, let me make an attempt at doing so for the sake of this post. I’m 6’3, light skinned, and facially?, I know say I try, even if I say so myself! And as the birds of a feather saying connotes, I kinda keep a relatively high standard to the girls I hang out with.

So, lets get back to the reason why my friend slowed down. …I SAW HER!! I thought to myself in pidgin ‘abi na she be dis? Omo, make e no be she o! But she dey talk for phone….men na she o!! O boi!!! Tonia!…Tonia……Tonia was a very dark (jet black), very short (she has got to be no more than 5’2), round (by this I mean circular) looking female (notice I didn’t use the word girl)! Putting it very mildly, most definitely not my type!! Polished but very crude looking…heeellllllll no!!!

By now my guy was stationary so I turned and waved to him to come over with a look on my face that said something like ‘so you wan make only me go meet am? Abeg show! Instead I said out loud “Ah ah, come lets meet my friend”. I finally walked up to her, we greeted. I was looking around to see if someone else was speaking through her body….but….fat chance….this was all there was to it.

There and then I made up my mind that this’ll probably be the last time I’ll be seeing her so I decided to make the most of it. I just tried to make the meeting seem normal and happy.

We stayed there for about 40mins…no more…and had to leave cos ‘I had to run an errand’. I just had to leave, was very uncomfortable. I had a good laugh with my friend in the car on our way back, but I was really disappointed about how things had turned out.

All this happened last November. I can’t bring myself to tell her I’m not interested anymore when we speak over the phone, for we still talk. I just hope she’ll take a cue from the vibes I’m generating.

BYE mehn. Was nice knowing you sha!!!

The Maize Story

It’s so cool to be back with my page. A couple of days ago, I didn’t think I’ll ever be in the mood to do any typing. I thought, maybe I’ll hire a typist, and just be an editor! Well, here I am again, doing what I know how to do worse!! How una dey? We’re barely into the New Year and it’s already the 3^rd of January. I really do foresee a fast year ahead of us. Wish you the best.

I was going to edit this post I had drafted earlier to be up to date, but I figured I’ll just leave it as it is so you can feel what I’ve been up to in the past few months or so. I put it down just after I returned from school. Enjoy…..

Just got back from school two days ago. What’s being happening to ya’ll? Doing okay I hope. I meant to drop a post before I left, but you know how it is with time. Anyways, school was okay, spent a total of three weeks plus. Hope you guys missed me cos I did. Your boy is now officially a Chemical Engineer, so if there’s any job opening you know of, holla at me, and quick too, cos my eye dey red right now! That’s that about that.

Now to business of the day, or post of the day. What’s being happening out there? Funny enough, I was expecting at least 80 comments on my posts (really lol!), so you can imagine the way I laughed at myself when I found 2 very forlorn looking comments staring at me in the face. But I guess they’re better than none at all. Thanks to both of you.

A lot have happened in my life the past few weeks. On getting to school, a lot of memories came to the fore of my mind and I began to ponder and ravel at the experiences I’ve been through(I know, I know,I suck at poetry!). I really can’t wait to tell you all about them. I’ll start with the first one that came to my mind, which is about the title of this post: The Maize Story.

Just incase I’ve not mentioned it before, I schooled in the east and we all know what the eastern part of the country is characterized by: lots and lots of green luscious vegetation. Cash crops being cultivated every season. Now overlooking my 2-story balcony is a very wide expanse of maize plantation. I remember how I and my flat mates used to stand from that height and watch one old woman and her children (I guess) take their timeout to take professional care of this plantation. It never crossed my mind that I would one day become a farmer, even if it was just for one night!!

It was one of those times in school when there was a general and simultaneous blow of the North West trade ‘owu’ winds (long for ‘being broke’). Nobody could boast of not being affected. It was so bad that me and my flat mates sat down one day and had a serious talk about alternative sources of staying alive, as resources were scarce and we were down to eating about once a day! All of a sudden someone suggested we invade the maize plantation behind our building! At first it sounded hilarious. But before long, hunger overcame reason and it started to sound like an ingenious idea. And so we planned out the strategy with which to carry out this our plan that was beginning to take the form of a very covert mission because of the way it was all mapped out: 8 of us were to take part, all armed with flash lights and backpacks, with respective directions to ensure proper coverage of the farm. All was set.

So two days later, we couldn’t wait for night to fully fall. We were very appreciative to NEPA, or is it PHCN for their incompetence. There was no power supply so our cover by darkness was absolute. We even made an attempt to don ourselves with dark clothes. Real clandestine stuff! That was how the 8 of us hit the road. It took us about 5 minutes to get into the farm space and without much ado and heading out in our various directions, we started to harvest.

I must tell you that it was no mean feat! What with having to harvest quickly and watching out for intruders.

Now I know this story sounds very flat and bare, but as with most of my posts, there’s a twist to this one as well. Wait for it!

In the middle of the farm was this tree, about 10ft high, for protection from the sun for the farmers. Now, one of us that was harvesting that way, suddenly called our attention. He said (in hushed tones, we were trying to be as discreet as possible) he heard voices coming from the tree’s direction. Voices of about two people ‘talking’ and ‘making funny sounds’. We all thought it was very funny and we laughed at him saying he was seeing and hearing things. We told him we’ll soon be done here so he could go to sleep. But I suspected we were all secretly wondering if was true. I did. Infact I couldn’t wait for us to be done with the operation and get my hungry behind out of the bush at that late hour. Honestly I was getting the creeps. Everybody unconsciously kept quiet to verify the mockery of one of us, hoping he was indeed hearing things!!.

So we continued in relative silence, with the only ruffling sounds being made by the plants as the wind and our hands passed through them. I guess it was instinct or fear, but about 20 seconds after the ‘people talking and making funny sounds’ drama, one of us pointed his flash light up the tree. All our eyes instinctively followed his light. Hanging very precariously, was a calabash with stuff that looked like cassava leaves or some other leave, pressed in it. At that moment, I guess we were all awe struck because nobody could move. All we could do was look from the tree back to ourselves, contemplating what to do next. Then something else happened that gave us no further need to decide what to do next. We all heard it!! It sounded like “Na bia nu. Bia ba nu” (meaning “come on, that’s it, keep coming” in Igbo). Keep coming to where??? I still pinch myself till today for not being the first to take off. We all took off, fast. Nobody wanted to be behind.

Believe me that night was really scary. It was so scared, I’m getting goose bumps as I write now. Brrr!!!

The ironic thing that night was that, despite the hunger that drove us to go stealing, we couldn't even eat the corns for fear of turning into a stone or chair or some other inanimate object...or out rightly dying!! And so all that corn stayed with us for the next two days with nobody daring to eat any, until the hunger was just too much bear. So we just came up with a reason to allay our fears somewhat. If there was any form of ‘juju’ or ‘otumokpo’ in the corns, it probably won’t be enough to go around and affect all of us. i.e. the resultant effect will be lost out and we’ll all be in the clear!! You think there’s no sense in that?….take it up with our demanding stomachs! So we processed the damned crops and demolished with our mouths. It lasted for three days, which was quite a substantial amount of time to be getting free food in school!

Moral lesson of this experience: When going to harvest from a maize farm that doesn’t belong to you, wear earplugs and dark shades and just grope in the dark!!

Ctrl + R : Me refreshed!!!

Can I have your attention for the next 7 to 8 minutes, depending on how fast you are anyway. I refuse to state once again like I had done so boldly in the past, about me “being sorry” for not making any post in the past couple of months, and declaring that “I’m back”.
I vehemently refuse to make any such declarations, which is quite frankly against my will. You will agree with me that a simple I’m sorry will be appropriate in this circumstance for I’m pretty sure a good number of people check in to el-correcta.blogspot.com, hoping to at least read something new. I know this for a fact because I also check out some blogspots every now and again and get disappointed, maybe even annoyed , when I see nothing but stale posts staring back at me!

Let me go back on my word here, at least partly, by apologizing. I am truly sorry for being away for so long. I even miss the picking of my own brain when drafting these posts like I’m doing now! For an attempt at an explanation…..i don’t know….i guess I was experiencing a mid typing crisis (if there’s anything like that, that is!!!). just looking at the keyboard of this my archaic Toshiba laptop, the color simply drains from my fingers, honest! The antidote?? My sis came in from Abuja and was telling me some of her friends read some of my posts and were absolutely.........well, in love with it. They decided, after reading my posts to sign up on blogger and send in their own posts. They were really impressed and sent down their approval. Guess that’s what did the trick! I’m so elated to know a lot more people than I know of take some time out of their busy schedules to sample this plain insignificant location (el-correcta) on such a wide medium (the web). So I guess I’ve just been fueled with some encouragement.

WOW!! That took all of my mental strength, writing those first two paragraphs that is. I mean, people who have read my earlier posts know I don’t roll like that. All that grammar and vocab.! Anyway. I was just trying to let ya’ll know wots up with my absence, that’s all.

In a very orthodox manner, which is really not in my character, i wish you all a Happy New Year. I’ll see you in my next post…..I hope! Hey weinna! Wondering when you're coming onboard.