RICE, CHICKEN AND THE GHOST OF SKINNIER TIMES

(NOT FOR THE FATTY HEARTED)

Well it’s almost Christmas again; the Nigerian Olympics for rice cooking, fuel scarcity and the torture of listening to Christmas song everywhere you turn……..Feliz Navidad, propesro ańoy Felicidad  (repeat 1000000x)

Christmas is big on our minds for a lot of reasons but for some, and at one point for me, it was another pivotal period to enter the fattening room and fight the demon called fast metabolism. Now without trying to sound unnecessarily cerebral like some school lecturers, fast metabolism is basically what makes skinny people remain skinny.

I warned you didn’t I? If you have been all about that bass (fat) without treble (slim) all your life, this might sound more confusing than our country’s politics.

Remember Fido Dido?  That skinny animated 7up sensation during the early 90s; way before Nigerians relegated the drink to what you just mix with “ugwu” leaf to cure acute malaria. Never been called that? Then you don’t know how important the struggle is during this period.

You enter into a crowded place and your head drops evil lines:

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall; who is the skinniest of them all”

Spare a thought to when your plans for the festive period, was narrowed to just eating enough food to ensure that when you get to school to resume a semester, friends would flower you with compliments:

 ‘Ahan! Na u be this? See as you don fat!

Chai! So u fit fine like this?

Abeg, Abeg, no reduce, so na school dey make u look like suffer person?’ 

Kind of validates the thought that some of us are not really ugly but just skinny, stressed and maybe broke.

Some of us now have gotten married, given birth, left school, gotten a job, now a boss and the slim monster has finally been defeated. Although fatty tissue is not necessarily the consequence of all these, but my point is this:

Forever doesn’t exist on earth

Today, it might be about food and the moving away from the depression of the ‘skinnies’; tomorrow it might be the battle to shake off being super-sized, broke, jobless, unmarried, loveless, sick or anything that faults your reality. Like many things in this life, these too shall pass.

So as you enjoy the Christmas, make laughs and create moments, remember: the challenges of life fades just like the season….

Have a chicken filled Christmas people.

FORGET THE NEWS; WATCH NICKELODEON!

In my undergrad days, a lecturer of mine that I would best describe as a nonconformist, had a statement attributed to an American author and humorist Mark twain plastered on his office wall that reads: “if you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed”

.

Didn’t put much thought to it back then cause I had more important things to worry about as a student like: how to apply cold water starch on my shirt without the dreaded starchy seed effect; perfecting the art of attending 7am classes; how to tell your parents that if they don’t send you money before the weekend, you would die; how to stop doing assignment for ladies for free etc (don’t judge me)

Now am all grown, earning some level above the minimum wage and therefore worthy to talk about all things state of the nation (forgive my warped syllogism)

I have followed political and social events from traditional news outlets to the amplified social media platforms but the problem is that watching happenings especially political ones in Nigerian can leave you utterly disillusioned.

 It felt really cool at one point feeding on news items because you realise that your cartoon network state of mind has finally been shed away; but at what cost?

With Nigerian news inundating your mind, one is constantly feeling like a partner in an abusive relationship: the lies, battering and constant emotional pain. You try to maintain a normalcy bias that “all is well” but nothing feels more hurtful than someone that constantly disappoints you.

You hear how leaders take turns to sink their hands into the hamper basket of our collective treasure. Dasukigate,  EFCCgate,  Abachafloodgate, Nimasadoor, DSSwindow; every single news smeared with some billions in them.

 Leaders come, go; change party, change manifestoes; change regalia, change mantra but in the end: “same shit, different toilet”

Nothing surprises me anymore and when I stumble upon a depressing news item or see one in my timeline, I just smile, take the remote and turn to Nickelodeon because the life expectancy in Nigeria is way too low and anti-depressant pill is way too expensive to be a Nigerian news enthusiast.