Thursday March 21 2013

Good morning Lord, good morning beautiful March 21 2013. I feel very groggy this morning. Cherrie called me regarding her assignment, I put finishing touches to it and sent it to her. Then Ibe asked me one of those ludacris questions. He ask, ''Did you use the toilet?'' I simply answered no. Im not saying I don’t use toilets, I do. Somebody messed up the toilet. I don’t do that. It’s not my usual style. Instead of asking those whose signature it is to mess things up, scatter, disorganize, destroy, litter, make untidy, etc he is asking me whose signature is to keep clean, neat, tidy, organised, etc. I hate it when he asks me such questions. Just like asking an ostrich, 'did you fly over my roof?'

Then the wife said it was her but quickly shifted the blame to the toilet. She said the toilet is in the bad habit of regurgitating flushed stuff. She is notorious for denying things even when caught red handed, I find it very irritating. She will never simply take responsibility of a fault without having to rigmarole trying to justify why it wasn’t her fault, and that’s the part I passionately hate. I wonder what Ibe would've said or done had I been responsible for the mess. Imagine a pig asking a cat why something is dirty.

Around 7:48am Amara was like ''oh my God we are supposed to meet by 8:00am'' I felt like *+-#:"=/!@, anyway never mind. As I was getting clothes ready I stumbled on a remarkable find. Yesterday I thought I lost N4000. I just couldn’t find it. I thought it was a punishment from God for slyly taking extra N7000 from my boss/brother. I really felt bad about it. Well easy come easy go right? My face beamed with happiness when I saw it. I showered and left for work. I’m gonna open another account for my boss. Three of the requirements are yet to be provided, that’s where I come in. I will go about getting them hence complete the account opening process.

While my boss and Ifeanyi attends a meeting where they try to seal a deal. Good luck to them and me. My first assignment was a total waste of time. I went on wild goose chase to Ikota Shopping complex looking for a FIRS office and a phantom FIRS agent or tout. I got pissed by the dearth of specific info provided by the contact at access bank. I left for Marina to see the lawyer at Caxton-Martins legal firm. This was 100% successful.

I bought singlets for myself and headed back to the office. I ran into traffic. Not experiencing traffic in Lagos road everyday is like taking shower without water or any form of liquid. Bus stops are packed full with passengers, traffic is so slow a snail can easily overtake the cars. Thank God the heat is not that bad. It was 6:29pm when I got back to the office. Ifeanyi left immediately. I left a few minutes after seven o'clock. I stopped briefly at Doc's place before going home. For the first time in a looooong while I met my roomy couple at home. I ate noodles and went to bed.

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Wednesday March 20 2013

I need to change the way I live or live the way I change. That’s a quote I came up with today. I really mean it. Meanwhile I have been up for some time now. And my brain haphazardly zipped through the periphery of creative idea zone without any creative idea formulating compass. I prepared for work and vamanos.

There was no power in the office. This inefficiency has gotten out of hand. Everybody except the caretaker of the office complex wants to move. The caretaker is getting some perks which makes his charge significantly low. All the potential office space we found was more expensive than our current ill-maintained office building. First thing I did when the power was restored was to book the plane ticket to SA on SAA for Ifeanyi, it cost $1,055.14. It was late evening already.

My roomy couple weren’t home when I came in. They came back around 11pm.

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Tuesday March 19 2013

I made it to the land of th living today, thank God for life. Most times we take waking up for granted like it’s our bona fide right. I reached the office a little after nine just about same time Chris was stepping out his car. He pampers this car more than a baby. It’s a convertible black Volvo car. Very rare make of car in these parts. He is a grandmaster when it comes keeping a car washed, waxed, cleaned. As a matter of fact he is importing his own trusted cleaning agents from the US, he doesn’t trust the products in Nigeria. Ifeanyi came in at the same time too like we all timed each other.

Chris doesn’t have a key yet so he has to wait for us even when he is in a hurry and we are late. It really sucks to him. He is the one delaying molding the key somehow, just drop the cash and the key will drop. My boss came in much later. We did some work. He has been planning a South African trip which might include all of us. When the time came to it, he excluded me. Later on he was like I should start processing my visa but he isn’t promising anything. I looked up SA visa application requirement and process. I was waiting for some sort of go ahead green light. Today that light turned crimson blood red. He asked me to book a plane ticket to SA for Ifeanyi.

I didn’t quite expect him to come through about me joining the SA travel team but somehow I felt bad. My mind started playing the devil's advocate. I remember how on every occasion he has left me out of things that should naturally seamlessly include me for equity sake. After a while as if realizing the impact of what he has said, he added “I’m sorry I couldn’t include you. I tried. Maybe next time” Yeah I feel so much better now. Yeah right. I leached away that bad feeling from my mind by researching online about ways to think creatively and come up creative ideas.

I need to start thinking creatively again like I did back in 2007-8 I need to flex my brain tissue to its limit profitably. I couldn’t book the flight cuz Ify don’t have his passport with him. And the day came to an end. Got home Ibe and his wife weren’t around as usual, neither was my scrabble. I’m guessing they go to Threadstone's house. Going by their reputation to spoil things, I pity my scrabble. I didn’t know when they came back cuz I was fast asleep.

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Monday March 18 2013

Hello dear good morning, how are you? You broke nicely, brightly and I woke in high spirits. By the time I walked into the office, I was already soaked. Mehn I sweated so much today. Any little thing I did sweat just flowed freely like snakes of river all over my body soaking my shirt. Why is my body behaving like this today? Thanks to the electrical fault in the office complex, our air conditioner power sockets were affected. Damn of all the power sockets to affect! The heat these days make me feel like I’m in a microwave.

Ifeanyi told me some really nasty stories about Nigerian police/EFCC gross human right violation and illegal detention without bail or charges. I felt so bad. I felt so sorry for the innocent victims. And sadly this evil is still going on. I rearranged my boss' shelf and organized his files/folders. I’m a natural at organizing/arranging stuff neatly and nicely. He was thinking of relocating the office cuz of the constant water and power problems at the present location. He found a nice place but the rent wasn’t really nice. So he decided to continue taking the bullshit.

I didn’t notice the absence of my boss' brand new iPad in the office, it never crossed my mind. He opened up to me and Ifeanyi on the sad side of his trip from Owerri to Lagos. He lost it on the plane. He was furious and ashamed to tell anybody. That’s the second iPad he lost on a damn plane!

Meanwhile Aero is yet to refund me my N19,000. I wonder when that will eventually happen cuz Aero workers are on industrial strike. This is not good. I will keep praying for my dough to safely come back home. The day came to an end.

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Sunday March 17 2013

Today is my second workers-in-training class. I woke up and prepared for service. The starts by 7:00am prompt. I was late by a two minutes, different watch times I guess. I got punished for it by staying at the back of the class for some time. We read open heaven in the class. Service was good but I was feeling sleepy again. What is the problem? It ended well after all.

Only Amara was at home when I got back from church. She was trying to clean the room. I decided to not touch anything in the name of cleaning for several days now just to see how filthy they make the room and still be comfortable with.  Call it observational research if you will.The bathroom has packed dirt like ''text-coat paint'', everyday new cotton swab populate the room, also white toothpicks has joined the queue, empty insecticide canister at one corner, clumps or clods of attachment hair punctuate several corner, trash in the kitchen competing for height with Dubai Burj tower, repulsive smell harshly greets you as step inside the room (you might need a gas mask), etc. I was like, and God remembered me, in other words and this room was remembered for cleaning today. I had to move one or two times for her to do her cleaning.

After cleaning she left. I was alone. I tried to sleep. But sleep wasn’t coming. In between my waiting for sleep to knock me out, Ibe waltzed in. A few more minutes and I gave up the quest to sleep and went over to Caesar's. They were home. His babe was in the kitchen. We exchanged pleasantries and all. Caesar as usual invited me to play drought with him and the unusual happened. I beat him two straight games and he struggled to win the third. This is my first time of winning him at that game. He won some more. We played ludo and he won a few times more than me. As we whiled away time on different game boards, Blessing finished her assignment in the kitchen. She served a delicious Edikan Ikong (Edikaikong) soup with semo. The soup was very rich.

After we finished our meal I went home to change for the evening football game. Normally I drive Caesar's car to the venue while he rides bicycle but today I decided to ride bicycle instead. That was a good exercise too. My side demolished Caesar's side 11-2! It was hilarious lol. On my way back to from the game, I took an alternative route meant to avoid the toll gate. It was my first time on that road. The scenery was awe-freaking-some! The road was long and soo good and very free. It made my ride the most enjoyable experience that evening. I returned the bike much later cuz of my little detour. It was worth the while. I got home showered and had a very nice sleep.

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Saturday March 16 2013

I always look forward to running on Saturdays. I had abandoned the Lekki Road Warriors running club because their goals and mine were milk and oil, they don’t mix. I decided to run with them today. I kinda miss their company, no kidding. They do 15km now. I’m thinking of sticking to 5km. I just wanna stay fit not lose weight. I just took it easy cuz we were running a new route unfamiliar to me, plus I didn’t wanna rush myself. I just followed the lead dog as opposed to being the lead dog. At a point the lead dog tired and I took over nicely. After the run I went to the office to grab something and sleep got firm hold of me there. I slept long.

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Friday March 15 2013

I woke up. More like my roomies woke me up with their hush-hush reading sounds. They are reading some articles regarding Amara's saladmaster training. She has been undergoing training for some time now. ''I need be at the venue by 9:00am'' There she goes again! A leopard cannot change its spot no matter how you use hypo bleach to wash it. She left the house around 9:30am. They had breakfast, the last noodles in the house. I went to the office late. Ifeanyi and Chris didn’t show up at all. I wonder what they are up to. The day was a bit dull but it went by quickly. I booked a flight for my boss back to Lagos. I worked on my blog. I went home.

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