Family Woes

A good week to everyone! My week’s been dotted with a few health challenges. I don’t know what I ate the day before yesterday but I do know that I spent the whole day seated on the throne getting rid of most of my problems. The good thing is, I feel considerably lighter which makes my task of battling this advancing bulge not as much a mirage as it was last week. My mum called yesterday and asked how I was and I made the mistake of telling her how I was, and then slipped further into the mud by telling her I ate outside; the very thing we were banned from doing as kids. “Kalu, how many times have I warned you against eating out?!! You look at the food at it looks and tastes so nice but have you been to the place they cook? Even on food channels here, you hardly see them washing their hands before going from one segment to the other. They wipe dishes clean with tablecloth that’s already laden with germs how much more there in Nigeria where there are no enforced food processing laws!” “Mum,” I started. “Let me finish! You know how to cook don’t you? Even if you’ve forgotten how, settle down with someone who loves you and will look after you and leave those useless girls alone. Look at my teacups and chinaware, all in their perfect places. When will I have little ones
to break them for me?!” Can you imagine that?! I know how many times my bottom was warmed or when my ears sang for marking walls with crayons and charcoal and for smashing the very wares I’m now being encouraged to smash via my offspring blowing hot and cold with the same breath!. It’s okay though; I have long since learnt that life isn’t fair.

The last came last night from my brother Obasi. After reading my previous post, School Ghost, the cheeky blighter not only had the nerve to demand a refund of his school fees that I had ‘appropriated’ during my truancy days in secondary school, but also put his comments on the same post for all to see! The very pettiness of it! If I were to begin to recount the number of times he has taken my stuff and run off to school – we were in different schools at the time – and demand payment, with interest, I’d be a much richer man today. Like the time when he took my, my… I can’t remember but you and I know, Obasi, that if you think very properly you will know that what I’m talking ab… Hey! It just occurred to me that I don’t remember any of the wrongs that were done to me by my siblings in the past! That’s means I’m a very forgiving man, and if a forgiving man, then a good man. If a good man, then a heaven bound man! Yaay! But hey, you’re still a wonderful brother and I love you. E never finish o!

A very dear happily married friend of mine, just because I told her I am the black sheep of my family proceeded to inquire after my unmarried brothers for her very chaste friend! Ah, the dividends of see finish ! The prophet is never appreciated by his loved ones; only by outsiders. But, I am a forgiving man. I will shrug it off and plod on towards my destination. I bestow the hand of benevolence on all; my dear mother who failed to recognize that in the entire six years of my stay here I have not had food poisoning, and this one little incident that I ventured to intimate her with, has brought a roomful of bricks crashing down on me, my dearly beloved brother who cannot let bygones be bygones and my darling friend who has serious issues with colour! “Nearer to Thee O Lord (are these the correct words to the hymn?), nearer to Thee!”

Okay, I’m done with my tirade. Have a great week everyone!