PAAAH—this is actually not an acronym, this is exactly the sound of the slap from the devil himself. Paaah is the reaction that comes from the skin that holds metal bars hitting your well rounded cheek.
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You may start your day on a bad note, like using a bass voice for soprano. Please never end your day on a bad note. Never! You want to know why? I'm sorry for being rude, should have introduced myself, but you see a man slapped at exactly 5:17pm doesn't remember to introduce himself.
I am what people would call smart but you see sometimes I'm extremely stupid. Stupid like trying to flush your trousers down the WC because you peed on them. Maybe I am not entirely stupid but just irrationally logical. Everybody has a phobia, and mine is cash—I hate holding cash for long, I don't feel safe, like the microorganisms would somehow creep into my skin and build a colony. The thought alone sickens me.
Since my country is not totally ready for cashless transactions, I only withdraw the exact denomination I need from the ATM. Yesterday was hushed up since it was rush hour. Few metres away from the bridge were commuters waiting impatiently in distorted lines to devour the next available tricycle. Pardon me, we don't have tricycles in Lagos, what we have is Keke. Every ten to fifteen minutes, one Keke comes for about thirty-two passengers, ten will struggle to board and ultimately only the four strongest and wittiest would eventually board. It's a tug of war.
Yesterday was another tug of war.
This guy went to take a leak. Before he could say piss, another Keke came, he had to zip his fly real quick to join other combatants. After hitting heads and breaking arms, he finally made it in. Fortunately.
While the Keke was moving, we heard increasing whimpering from the back, only to look back and realise our guy zipped his pipe with the fly. Unfortunately.
After getting to our final destination and it was time to pay, I then realised I didn't visit the ATM amidst all the rushing. “Oya, pay my money” the driver barked. The only thing I could think of was to stretch forward my MasterCard ATM card. “Sebi you get POS na” stupidly dropped out of my mouth. PAAAH was the next thing I heard and I lost two things momentarily—my eyesight and my ATM card.
© Abdulhameed Ridwan O