NOTE: This is the second post of a three part entry. View the first part here.

Previously on WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE…

I’m learning that making plans isn’t always a good plan.

I had ‘planned’ to have a nice, quiet weekend where I did didlee squat; yet, I now embark upon my second odyssey to the aeroport in about an hour.

On Sunday, the wife once again handed the little man over to me as she was on her way to get her hair braided, so that was the day gone.

Little man was very good until he started getting a bit cranky towards the evening.

My phone rings and it’s his mother. My darling dearest asks me, “Do you think I can make it from Onikan to the house driving on a flat tyre?”

 

Sunday evening

So, here I am warring with a cranky infant and I now have a panicky mother/wife on the phone. It’s about six pm at this time and my ‘naff-all’ weekend is going splendidly… NOT! So I say to her, after some heavy sighing, “Well, you can if you have money to buy a new tyre.” Not the most helpful or nice thing to say but understandably, I’m rather irritable at this point. She lets out a classic, ‘Ah!” which needs no further explanation – shelling out N13,000 – N19,000 on a tyre (which I would have to go buy, by the way) is so not in her plans. I go, “But there’s a vulcanizer (anyone besides Nigerians use this term?) at the top of that street!” She responds, “Yes but he’s not there!” It is, after all, a Sunday. It’s hard to find anyone, anywhere actually working. She utters some indecipherables and I close my eyes, clutch my boy tight, swallow then exhale, “I’m coming to get you, hang on…”

So much for stress-free, eh? So, I put the lil’ chairman down on his mat and he screams non-stop as daddy runs helter-skelter, apologizing frantically while wading in the dark… Yes, the dark as there’s no electricity and the bloody inverter might have been made as a public primary school Science project. Ok, I tell myself, get his bag… get some milk… clean diapers (yes, plural)… nappy rash cream… change of clothes? No sir, he’s not going for a sleepover, he’ll be fine… get some water as well…   get some wet wipes… toys… bibs… WHAT ELSE??? I’m just grabbing blindly at this point but hope I have the necessities. This will be a very short trip, after all, no?

Tick… tock…

I manage to hustle little man into his car seat and strap his hollering self in. I wonder what any neighbors that saw me must have thought, what, with a screaming infant in one hand and a bag, keys, I think shoes (Oi! Don’t judge me) and whatnot in the other. That’s their bee’s wax. Anyway, I get him in and then there’s a little dilemma… his car seat is behind the driver’s seat and is now an issue as I won’t be able to see him. My options are: get in and go, trusting he’ll be fine or lose the 45 seconds or thereabouts of daylight moving it to the other side would cost me. Thinking… ok, I’m not ready to put in another 14 months just yet to get another adorable, hollering poo monster to replace this chairman and even if I was, I’m not physically equipped to do that as I know the Missus (who put us in this position, mind – yeah, twasn’t intentional but still…) is not even interested. So I swap the seat’s position and head off. Guess who’s still crying all this while… ME! Ok, I was just crying out like a likkle [approved term for female dog] while my son was confirming his vocal chords were in tiptop nick.

So, as we get onto the street where this mishap has occurred, there’s a guy frantically pointing towards the passenger side of my car. I’m highly upset at this point and throw him a cold stare like, ‘Doesn’t this dude think I know there’s a huge scratch on the side of my car?’ But there’s something about the way he’s pointing, so I stop the car, exhale, back up then roll down the window. He opens his mouth to speak and as the words form, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. You’ll never guess what this man said to me…

“You have a flat tyre!”

1 + 1 is greater than 1 x 1!

I Am Random!