3 billion kilograms of gist…

Hello beautiful people!

Forgive me please!! Yes, it’s been ages… months actually. At some point, my subscription expired and I didn’t even have a site anymore. Thank you guys so much for the e-mails and other messages you sent to make sure I wasn’t dead.

I hope you guys have been great. The amount of gist I have for you is immeasurable… it’s like 3 billion kilogists worth and it will be nearly impossible to catch up. I might as well start with whatever is going on now.

So, to begin with, I’m at home 🙁 I’m currently on suspension from work… two weeks without pay. It was a really big deal… bigger than I thought it would be. I had to face a mini panel and listen to all the reasons why I’m a bad girl. I wasn’t even given a chance to speak or defend myself so the process didn’t take too long. I just sat numbly through it all, feeling bad for all the wasted hours spent in front of the mirror practicing how I would point to the head of the panel and scream, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!” or “OBJECTION YOUR HONOUR!!” at random moments.

Anyway, here I am today, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with myself for 10 working days. The only thing I have accomplished so far is learning the lyrics to Shakiti Bobo. I have a few other things I would like to do on my mind… I’ve listed them all down, but it’s a very restricted list cos my inner man keeps reminding me of the part of my letter that has “without pay”…

Yesterday, I got dressed to go to the gym. I wasn’t sure what time the Zumba class was supposed to be, I wasn’t sure of the address and I wasn’t even sure of the name of the gym. I used to go there with a friend for insanity work out classes. So I set out in the morning, got in a bus and ended up stuck in traffic for almost an hour. I made a mistake and came down one bus-stop too early, took several wrong turns, and by the time I found the gym, I was sweating like a horny goat.

Of course I was late for the class… the class had ended 7:30 in the morning. I sat in the reception and cooled off a bit, copied the workout time table and left again on foot. This time, I had no real destination. If you saw any fat black chubby dark-skinned lady roaming around Law School in VI midday yesterday, wearing sweatpants, sneakers and a black hoodie, then that was me.

I ended up under Ikoyi Bridge by the water. I got there just as the Yoruba apostles Oluwapaul and Shinapeter were sailing in with a boat full of sea creatures. There’s a market under the bridge where people buy and sell seafood. Immediately the apostles arrived, the market came alive… there was a lot of activity off-loading the boats. Forty minutes later, I was heading home with a bag full of snails, prawns, bell peppers and a fat ugly fish that the fish seller promised would change my life and make me a better person… or maybe he just said the fish “sweet well well”. All join.

There’s no proper update on my love life… I’m even more singular than the last time we talked. In August, three different people offered to hook me up with nice guys they know. Three times I almost panicked. I didn’t exactly say no, but I also didn’t jump at the idea either. I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me… I’m comfortable being single, but me sef I know that time is going. These eggs are not going to hatch fertilize themselves.

And just to show you how un-serious I am, I have two clients (not one, but TWO different clients) who are trying to hook me up with one relative or the other. You know how it is; when you are relating with customers/clients you put on your very best behavior. These two think I’m the coolest thing since Agege bread. So both of them cannot understand why (despite my awesomeness) I am still single. It was all fun and games till the first person introduced me to his distant cousin.

It wasn’t a physical introduction, just an exchange of phone numbers. Not that it really matters, but this guy is Igbo. We talked for the first time on a Saturday morning some weeks ago and before that phone call was over, Nna bros had already disqualified himself.

What did he do? Well, in the first minute of the conversation, Nna bros asked how I was doing… asked about work and then BAM!! he asked for a picture.

If I had a picture of a crippled black woman with poor dentition, that’s exactly what I would’ve sent to him. Instead, I just told him that the only social media site where I have a picture is on Facebook. He said he was going to search for me and send an invitation. I gave him my full name knowing fully well that every Onitsha and Aba girl registered on Facebook goes by the same name. Ngozi is very common…

Of course he couldn’t find me on Facebook. I promised I would search for him instead and when I did, I found only one person by his full name. His picture brought tears to my eyes. In his picture, he’s wearing a white suit with brown pointy shoes. His black shirt is unbuttoned to show a heavy gold (gold plated?) chain dangling from his neck. I’ve never tried to zoom in but I have a feeling that if I do , I will see a few strands of thick, curly chest hair. The only thing missing from the picture is a walking stick in his hand and a container in the background.

He should have just allowed me fall in love with his wit and charm first, so that love will blind my eyes to his Aba pimp-daddy looks when I eventually meet him. Now I can’t get his image out of my mind. It’s getting harder and harder to manage the situation cos home boy wants to see me ASAP. During the week is mostly peaceful. It’s Friday evenings he starts to stress me when he calls to “casually” mention that he’s on the Island having drinks… do I want to come?

Of course, I never want to come. Even when I’m at home, in front of the Tv, I tell him I’m at work…

The other guy is Yoruba and lives in the US. I’m not sure exactly how he’s related to my other client, but after the trauma of Nna bros, I had to ask my client to hold on with the exchange of numbers. The last thing I need is some guy telling me about life in the Hovasieze…

Have a lovely week people.