SAVED by the BANK
The single client bank…
Today I arrived at the office early, as I had always skipped breakfast (I belong to the street, the street does not have breakfast at home, we have breakfast on the street) my boss was already in the office when I entered. Almost as if he had slept in the office waiting for my arrival.
I greeted him warmly and went to my desk to start the day’s work. After a while, I began to feel unusually hungry and weak, mainly because I skipped dinner the night before… these days, I barely eat, it seems as if my appetite continues to recede with the August rains.
I took permission from my boss and went to the cafeteria where the only food vendor available was a mixed Italian-Nigerian woman whose culinary prowess involved the use of many strange hot spices. I calmly took a seat by the window and asked for the menu. Looking through, I settled for a more familiar food choice among the variety of strange names I found in it, I chose fried rice and common fish…
They say that a Yoruba woman’s best friend is ‘Atarodo, shombo and tatashe’ but wait until you eat this woman’s food… Immediately my tongue touched the rice, I ordered two bottles of raggolis, I knew it was on fire.
But since I had paid a good sum for the food, plus it also tasted good (if you subtract the pepper), I gobbled it all down, drank a full cup of more water, and happily returned to the office…
As soon as I walked in, my boss asked me to follow him for a short business meeting at the military cantonment along the Kubwa road… I got in the car and we set off for the heart of Abuja.
Halfway through the trip, I suddenly felt unsettled, my stomach started making strange sounds, you know, the kind of sound you make when people in your town are bent on embarrassing you…it was quite unnerving and I felt very restless.
After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore, it was like my stomach was on fire… I really wanted to go. At that time we were already in area 11, if you know Abuja very well you will know that the whole place is busy with office buildings and beautiful flowers… no bushes at all for any kind of short term (Unibuja Hostel Girls can relate.
My boss saw a friend of his standing by his car in the Commassaie cantonment, he stopped the car and got out to exchange compliments, at that moment my body couldn’t take the immense pressure anymore… I had to leave as soon as possible.
I jumped out of the car and started frantically looking around for some bush, anything that looked like a bush, something with enough cover to protect me from the prying eyes of passing motorists… I couldn’t find any, now I was sweating profusely like a Hausa man who had just drank Sakemi.
My boss somehow realized my situation and reached out to me. ‘You know, Levi, there’s a bank over there by the barracks,’ he said with a knowing smile as he pointed to a complex a few yards away.
I didn’t wait to respond, just accelerated in the direction he’d pointed. I found the bank and ran to the security gate with a nice smiling security guard posted at the gate. When I got closer, he smiled.
‘Welcome to a client’s bank…
Still sweating, I managed to ask where the bathroom was and the guy waved his hands at me, obviously knowing why.
I ran to the bathroom, luckily there was no one in… I have never been so happy to see a toilet seat, it looked heavenly, white like the pure color of justice, round like Mama Emelda’s breast and deep like the veejaajay from a town run girl…
I took off my suit, my pants, my shirt, my tie, my belt, and I was completely naked… these kinds of things are best done naked, naked as a glass bulb. I took a good position and boy did it rain thunder, brimstone, rockets and bullets… Lord help whoever was sitting near the toilet that day, I’m sure even Ahmadioha in all his fury couldn’t have sounded louder than my blessed behind.
When I finished, I felt peace like a river…peace like the Benue River flowing through the quiet valleys of the Delta. I took my time straightening up, and boy, when I looked at myself in the wall-mounted mirror, I looked so stunning I could almost kiss myself.
I finally got out of the bathroom and stalked off the bench, only then did I recognize that it was a bench. When I got to the security guard at the gate, he just smiled and said, “Thank you for banking with One Customer bank.”
I smiled and walked confidently towards the car where my boss was sitting patiently waiting for me…