‘This life no balance’ is a popular phrase almost everyone uses and this lockdown has just as much explained it to me .

I work nightshifts as a security guard in a secondary school and double up as a waste collector in the town market during the day. All these to make ends meet as the breadwinner of the family .

Although regarded mostly as lazy probably because I like drinking ‘Kaikai’ (dry gin) but that is just me cutting my coat according to my size; should I be buying bottles of beer when my meager N20000 salary can barely sustain my wife and six children?...(and don’t ask me to give up my alcohol… lol never! ). So I just make due with mama Uju’s two shots for N50; and even though I still end up using more than N200, at least I’m getting more value for my money.(don’t judge me plix plix).

This corona period has really been hard on me. First, the private school where I work stopped payments so, I had to live on N10000 from my garbage disposal job since getting an alternative job wasn’t going as planned. But on the bright side, I always found solace in mama Uju’s shots even though they were now mostly on credit.

One day, while on my sixth shot, someone, during our usually unproductive but engrossing gist, said there was an ongoing construction nearby and they were recruiting workers. Elated at the news, the next morning, I rushed to the said site and talked to the Engineer in charge.

He told me he had taken the number he needed and didn’t need any more workers but I persisted (I know how to get favors from these type of people; just tell them a really long and sad version of your perpetual suffering and they would yield… grudgingly of course, but surely. ).so as usual, my method worked and I was slated to start the next week and would be paid daily.

I resumed work and for five days, I didn’t get any pay. On Saturday, I came for my money as I was already fed up with the incessant nagging from my wife who kept reminding me that there was no food at home and I should have joined her with farm work as it was planting season. But instead of defending myself, I reassured myself that the money I would bring home would calm her down (izit nor women again?...we are used to all these things. ).

On getting to the site, the engineer who hired me was nowhere to be found and I had to go home penniless again and face the torment of my wife. But I wasn’t going to do this alone, I needed a morale boost and as you might have guessed, mama Uju’s kaikai is going to serve as my ‘odieshi’ from the verbal bullets of my wife .

On getting there, mama uju refused to give me the normal dose, giving me just 2 shots for N50 to bring my debt to N1750. That day was hell in a cell for me, the kaikai didn’t do its work and how I escaped death that night was a pure miracle . I sha promised her I will come back on Monday with N5000.

We managed until Monday and I rushed to site and waited for the engineer but he hadn’t come. I was angry, hungry and confused. Lost in thoughts, a tough masculine tap envoked back to reality…. wait, my wife?!!!!!... chai Nne biko not here or now, biko(please) biko.

Apparently she didn’t believe me and decided to follow me to see things for herself. While we were still talking, the engineer drove in. (my God never flops… ). He apologized, counted N5000 and handed it to me. I felt real butterflies and crickets in my tummy that minute. I hadn’t even finished thanking him when my wife held my wrist and snatched the money from my grasp. While most people would see it as a display of love we both knew she was securing the family’s stomach from mama Uju’s bottles. So she went straight to the market while I went home.

After about two hours, I sighted my wife coming from afar; I quickly wore my best smiles . But this smile kept reducing as she kept getting closer , by the time she was in the compound , my face was like...(you know when you’re in a bus and you buy eggroll from a hawker, and your bus moves only for you to discover that there’s no egg in it; or you buy something in hold up and the person gives you incomplete change…. you get the point now).

Look at me expecting her to employ people to carry the amount of things she would buy from the market, instead I was seeing nylon (hian ).

So many things were running through my mind (are you sure this woman is not feeding her boyfriends with my money?...cus this life no balance ooo )

I didn’t reply her greetings, I just followed her straight to the kitchen and with an upset demeanor, I demanded an account of how my N5000 was spent. “Biko take it easy” she told me, “I bought a painter of beans and rice for N1000 and N1500 respectively; soup condiments and spices for N1000, and I know you like akpu so I got N500 worth too. And don’t forget the N500 we were owing that lady and this remaining N500 is to repair our barrow for farm work. Please let me go and fetch water so I can prepare food” I just weak , I slowly wore my disappointment face[sup][/sup] and buried it in my palms as I rested my elbows on their corresponding knees and switched to thinking mode… ’when did it become this bad in this country’ I thought to myself…

While in thoughts, I raised my face and somehow noticed one unscrupulous, miscreant and heartless rat disappearing with one crayfish right in my very before…(hmm you must be joking...) what nonsense, who you... Who gave you the temerity, the audacity, the comcombility(no meaning oh ) to take all my N50 fishes... I immediately sentenced it to death by hammering.

The rat knew it was going to die when I took my wife's pestle and raised it above my head. Kpam! Kpass... I kept hitting and missing... My anger, mixed with my determination to kill the rodent was 100% but I just couldn't get even a shot on the miscreant. Me that didn’t even buy meat! My sweat and hard labour for 5 good days.

After about 15 heavy weight artillery strikes (all missed) it entered a hole. To help my esteem feel I succeeded, I quickly mixed concrete and covered that hole area, I even raised the pavement to form a kitchen stool.

I really wish Nigeria will be fine again...

Written by Peniel Samson [facebook https://www.facebook.com/peniel.samson.33 ]
Edited by Edozie Obidile

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Woow
Very interesting work.
But the children na almost football squad ooo