WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE 3: WHEN THE WHEELS COME OFF

NOTE: This is the third post in a three part entry. View the first part here and the second part here.

Previously on WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE…

I had planned to have a nice, quiet weekend.

My darling dearest asks me, “Do you think I can make it from Onikan to the house driving on a flat tyre?”

I close my eyes, clutch my boy tight, swallow then exhale, “I’m coming to get you…”

So as we get to the street where this mishap occurred, there’s a guy frantically pointing towards the passenger side of my car and he said to me, “You have a flat tyre!”

Sunday… dusk

After viewing Act 2, someone asked me who I offended; someone else said, ‘When it rains it pours,’ and on cue, on this fateful Sunday, the rain started to pour…

CALM DOWN!!!

If it really did start to rain, I’d be too traumatized still to write this piece. With all else that had happened, I’d really seek out whoever I may have offended. But rain falling would have made a more enjoyable read for you, right? Wicked somebody!

Anyway, I ‘woosah’ knowing I have two flat tyres to content with. A voice tells me it was on one of those two aeroport runs that this mishap occurred and I got the flat. The problem is, my tyre pressure gauge is permanently on and the failsafe options in the manual haven’t worked and the service center mechanics are clueless as to what’s up, so a manual check of each tyre (which every good driver is supposed to do, anyway) before I drive off is what I always do, however, remember the situation – stuck Missus, cranky son, setting sun – I was in, so a quick getaway was all I was thinking of. But really, what are the odds of having a flat tyre on the way to sorting out another?

Sigh!

So, I finally get to where the wife is parked and she has a huge expression of relief on her face and quickly thanks me; before bypassing me and going for her son. Yeah, I’m used to that by now, no grudges. It is a stress free weekend after all, eh? I notice about six – eight grown men, not 20 feet away, playing football in the streets with tyres (the irony) as goalposts. Yes, the wife asked these gentlemen to assist her with changing the tyre and the said, emphatically I might add, if for nothing else, drama’s sake, NO!!! As I stood there gripping the tyre iron, I thought to myself, ‘What would Van Damme do?’ And it came to me…

He’d go there and politely interrupt, saying he didn’t mean to interrupt, in his awful accent which would be more responsible for their confused faces than his actual interruption. He would then explain, while absolutely murdering the word ‘chivalry,’ that it is rude not to assist a damsel in distress. One of them would make a rude remark, the others would laugh, the leader of the gang would poke his chest while informing him it was in his best interests to return to his woman and stop ruining their game.

What would follow is the lone Van Damme taking out all these muscular football players with a combination of the tyre iron, their football, makeshift goalposts and a belt. Oh, I like the sound of that but the tyre iron looks up at me and says in a very heavy Waffi accent, “But bros, you no be Jean Claude, na?!” I look at them in disgust one more time, as they play on, clueless to the fact that a talking tyre iron just saved them an ass whooping but I digress.

So, we’re parked in front of some office building and when I go about looking for bricks to wedge the tyres, the security dude starts walking towards me, I’m guessing to tell me I can’t park there. I think the devil in my eye (yeah, just the one eye) made him change course and his plan entirely as he said nothing, walking past instead. The wife is now in my car with the son, while I set to work on her car. I lose some valuable minutes of daylight because her car jack instructions are not written in common sense. That’s what you get with a Skoda, eh? (Yeah, blame the manufacturer for your nincompoopery but seriously, it wasn’t straightforward, at least, not to my hot head).

So, I get my straightforward Toyota jack – set, insert pin and keep rolling, rolling, rolling like Limp Bizkit – and get to work on her tyre while getting all sorts of grease all over my body. I failed to mention that I’d just had my bath for the first time all lazy weekend about 15 minutes before the distress call came. Yeah, and now, here I am, a little grease monkey. While I’m changing her tyre, their football comes within inches of me and I’m fuming, contemplating whether or not to deflate their ball but the wheel knot in my hand says to me, “Bros, even Chuck Norris no dey first find wahala.” Yeah, it had a point and I was racing against daylight but the ball retriever – yeah, they are dogs, aren’t they? – was smart enough not to make eye contact with me for if looks could kill…

the flat tyre mafia

I’m actually proud of myself as I make quick work of her car and set off to face mine, while she and Sonny Jim move into her car. For the first time, after having this car for about 18 months, I realize that my spare is the hilarious doughnut, at least, that got me smiling a little bit. So, after I jack the Toyota up – shoulders killing me at this point but I summon the healing power of Wolverine which has my exhaust in hysterics, amused by my continued idiocy – I get to loosening the knots which are really wedged in there. It’s getting darker now, so the real fear is misplacing the knots, so they have to be carefully placed. After I’m done with the knots, I get up to remove the tyre but it won’t budge. I’m like, “Oh, hell no!” I shake it, I hit it, I try to roll it, I hug it, sing to it, offer it some gum… nada! The tyre ain’t having it! I want to just collapse to my knees, drop everything and cry but my son would at that point in time learn how to walk and proceed to get out of the care and slap the [offensive content of his diaper] out my mouth. So, instead, I ‘woosah’ again. I try to get the tyre out for a few more minutes but no joy. My wife gives possibly the most sympathetic look that has ever been recorded in human history. Wish I had a photo.

the stubborn tyre and the teased doughnut

So, defeated and dejected, I start to screw the knots back into place on the flat tyre then proceed to lower the car and watch as the tyre flattens against the concrete. I get up to start throwing all the stuff into the trunk and somehow, the rolling pin for the car jack manages to scratch my wrist and via some security lights in the distance, I notice a little blood. ‘Just great,’ I think. ‘Typical to still add physical pain to the emotional and spiritual turmoil I’ve already endured on this stress free weekend.’ Anyway, all loaded up, I ask my wife to drive behind me as I… as I… drive the car from Onikan to the house on a flat tyre!

the cut

Who is in the garden?

I Am Random!

PS – The lesson I got from this is, always give proper answers to questions you’re asked and save everybody a lot of hassle. That said, I must be the worst student around as my answers are more roundabout than Ibadan’s Ring Road. If anything, got to spend time with the family, eh? And that cut wasn’t as little as I thought. While it thankfully wasn’t too deep, it was rather long and its leavings now serve as a permanent reminder to not make any plans.

the scar

Have I learned my lesson, though? Of course not! This weekend, I have PLANned to watch all four movies in the American Pie series without fail. If I’m not too ashamed, I’ll tell you how that goes.

The index and the middle!

WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE 2: ROLLIN’ IN THE DEEP

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!

WHEEL OF MISFORTUNE

With each passing day, well maybe not day, but more and more as my life progresses, I’m learning that making plans isn’t always a good plan. Sure, it’s good, scratch that, wise, to be prepared but for certain things, coasting and just going with the flow is the best course of action.

Why this realization? Well, a few weekends ago, I had ‘planned’ to have a nice, quiet weekend where I did didlee squat! This includes not powering up the PlayStation as its position in the house doesn’t allow for horizontal gaming 😦 Who wants to buy this lazy boy a La-Z-Boy? 😀 So, watching movies/series on the sofa/bed did fall under the didlee squat agenda.

However, since my life is a bad sitcom, you know that wasn’t happening. There just had to be some drama. The events of the Sunday have made the Saturday events a total blur as I cannot recall what went wrong at this point in time but my Monday assessment of the planned weekend was #EpicFail! (Yeah, I discovered twitter and being ha(r)sh to tags) meaning Saturday couldn’t have been so good but Sunday definitely took the cake and ate it too!

THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED ON SATURDAY!!! (Never underestimate the power of taking a dump. Being enclosed in the confines of a well ventilated bathroom works wonders for the memory and creative juices. Thanks to WordPress for the BlackBerry, my writing may drastically improve if I do more porcelain throne inspired musings :D)

Anyway, my big bro had been in town for our cousin’s wedding, some work stuff and some hard rocking (not necessarily in that order). When it was all said and done and time for him to skiddadle back to the UK, I was charged with driving him to the aeroport (just something about that word I like and besides, there’s air everywhere, so the atmosphere in itself should count as the AIR port, no? Again, characteristically, I DIGRESS!!!) early on the Saturday morning of my ‘do naff all day’ day. Ideally, noon was the earliest I should have gotten out of bed on such a day but here I was on my feet from about seven on the AM.

So, off I go with my bro to the aeroport and I think there might have been a little traffic but it was a pretty stress free journey; we had a good chat, said our goodbyes and then I turned around to head home, happy that I might still be able to get some well-planned shuteye. Got home, track pants off, Greg Louganis type dive into bed and on to some classic Zs we go!

NO!

Huh?

I said NO!

But whyyyyyyyyyyy?

Yo mama wants YOU!

Sigh!

“Hey mama, how are you? What can I do for you?”

“The driver isn’t here yet and he’s stopped picking up his phone and my flight is in about an hour. Can you drop me off at the airport, please? Thanks honey, I only carried you for nine grueling months and raised you, that’s all I did.”

Ok, of course she didn’t say that last bit but she didn’t have to. Mothers never have to but they know how to burrow it deep into your skull, psyche and conscience so as to guilt trip you all around the world.

So (worry not, I’m out the stinker and now lying in bed. Dame Judi Stench has been air freshened up. So much air in this piece. Maybe I should rename it ‘HOT AIR’… Digression!!!), I man up, grab her 50 pieces of luggage (another maternal staple – plenty load!) and log them into the car and embark upon my second odyssey (what, you’ve been reading this long and haven’t caught on to my penchant for exaggeration?) to the aeroport in about an hour, this time to the new domestic wing to see mama off.

We get there in good time even though I couldn’t put the pedal to the metal like I would have liked to because the mother told me numerous times to calm down while she clutched unto her safety belt, so I had to ‘Woosah’ my way on. So we made it, said our goodbyes and then I hightailed (now, is it high-tail or hot-tail? Either way, what the hell?) it on outta there, destination: bed.

Finally got home and received some sympathy from the wife who promptly handed our adorable infant son over to me to mind for the next few minutes or so as the nanny was off for the weekend. If I hadn’t realized it before then, by this point, I knew my plan had failed, at least, for Saturday. So I sucked it up and looked forward to a stress free Sunday.

I did manage to sleep quite a bit on Sunday but once I woke up, the wife once again handed the little man over to me, only this time, she was on her way out to get her hair did, braided no less, so that was the day gone. Don’t get me wrong, I love my son to death but he’s an infant, which involves a lot of crying to get what you want; vicious slaps to my face I can’t return and Niagra Falls levels of drool. Let’s not even talk about poop. Yes, this is what I signed up for but not on my lazy weekend! Thoughts of lacing the milk with booze did cross my mind but with everything else that had gone wrong, I didn’t see any positive results coming from that, so adhered to the voice of reason on my shoulder and did not tamper with his bottle.

To be fair to the little man, he was very good. Not much crying, if any at all and he slept quite a bit. We chilled and enjoyed each other’s company until he started getting a bit cranky towards the evening. In trying to calm him down, my phone rings and it’s his mother. “Please, let this be a call asking me what I want from Tastee Fried Chicken and not any more bad news,” I thought to myself as I answered.

This is me we’re talking about, right? So, my darling dearest asks me, “Do you think I can make it from Onikan to the house driving on a flat tyre?”

Why am I ending this post like this?

I Am Random!

RAT IN ME KITCHEN: THE SQUEAKUEL

NOTE: This is the concluding post of a two part entry. View the first part here.

Previously on RAT IN ME KITCHEN…

So, I’m chilling downstairs, watching bad TV and out the corner of my eye, what do I see, skip-skipetting out of the kitchen into the dining area? It’s a jet-black, fist sized, stinky, sneaky rodent!

A loose rodent is all I need right now. Paranoia sets in… I just want to make this go away quietly with the wife never finding out.

I’m upstairs spending quality time with the PS3 that night and notice something dart behind the window blinds. Ricky pops out and I reflexively leap forward as we make eye contact and he scurries back behind the blinds.

Paranoia is still in the air and the wife is heavy with child, so I decide I have to tell her.

“Darling, I have to tell you something.”  

“Oh my God! What???” she quizzes frantically.

“There’s a rat in the house…”

Thursday

So, after spending the better part of the night before consoling the wife and reassuring her that her knight in shining armor would triumph over this fearless foe, the day starts on a good-ish note. I discover Senor Ricky’s entry point behind the washing machine, where there’s an opening above the control tap for water flow. All I can find to plug it with is thick nylon (used to wrapped canned soda) and hope the intruder is outside the house at this point.

The cleaning dude comes through with some poison in powder form and starts distributing it in specific corners. I’m like, I’m sure we need to put some food out in the powder or something but he’s like, neh, the rat just comes in contact with it and its body starts to dry up…

Yeah, I was baffled as well.

So I’m like, “Surely, that has to be deadly to human beings as well, then!” And he’s like, “No, it doesn’t kill human being!” Gee, thanks Doc but that doesn’t mean it can’t make my life a living hell! Anyway, I accept the amateur diagnosis and hope for the best.

An uncomfortable wife returns home, self-conscious of every action but I confirm there has been no Ricky sighting but she still isn’t comfortable in the kitchen and won’t go in there unless I’m there too and I gotta eat, so you know how that ends up. No Ricky still, no powder looks compromised, so I tell myself I plugged the hole while he was outside and he couldn’t get back in. Score for Cheech! Carlton Banks dance!

Friday

A whole day rolls by and me no see no Ricardo Rodento so me happy so. The wife comes home and I tell her the same thing, so it’s a more relaxed household and all is well with the world again 😀

Or so I thought!

The wife’s in the kitchen, I’m in the living room and she suddenly rushes out to say she heard some rustling in the store. I move in, try to cause some commotion but get nothing. However, there’s no way she’s staying in that kitchen by her lonesome because she knows what she heard and we’re both hungry as sin!

So I post up on the high chair while she’s doing her thing. She’s at the sink, washing something when good ole Ricky runs out the store (Uh oh) under the stove (don’t go that way, Ricky, pleeeeeeeeeeease), behind the washing machine (you are going that way, doh!) and next stop should be my wife’s rubber slipper clad feet.

Not good.

I refused to panic though because I didn’t want to freak her out but the alternative didn’t look too good neither. The only thing is, he didn’t appear under the sink cabinets by her feet.

Odd.

Where’s he disappeared to? And then, just like that, he showed me his Michael Scofield-like escape route:

Behind the washer, he gets onto the water pipe, does a high wire act up it to the tap and squeezes, (as in, total compression) himself out of the tiniest of spaces exposed next to my tough nylon stuffing.

A ha!

Once his tail disappears out the hole, I calmly explain to my wife what just happened and with eyes wider than Jim Iyke‘s (just had to, sorry :D), she thanks me for sparing her the horror. (lesson to the kiddos… know the one you’re with ;)) So, I proceed to block off the exposed area with more nylon and this time leave some meat and fish on the powdery stuff for Mr. Rodent. Go into the store with Indomie Noodles on the mind, only to find… he’s eaten through a bunch of packs!!!

We retire for the night.

sigh!

Saturday

The wife normally wakes up early to get the day going, particularly with a swell breakfast. I never notice her leave as I’m such a deep sleeper but noticed her come in this morning with a sunken look on her face. Apparently, as she opened the kitchen door and turned on the lights, she was greeted by the two scrunched up nylon balls, prostrate on the floor and absent pieces of food on the powder.

It was official… we were being terrorized in our own home by a filthy critter!

I put in another call to management (I had done so earlier in the week) about our predicament and I wasn’t finding it funny any longer. Later that day, the plumber came round to have a look, left, came back with some wet cement he got from the construction workers on site and sealed off the hole.

Well, that stopped it (hopefully still just an ‘it’ and not a ‘them’ by this point) from coming back in. However, it also stopped it from getting back out, if it, indeed, was still in.

Bummer!

So, it was more scraps of food on the powder; a lot of kitchen avoidance and careful traipsing about the house on this particular Saturday.

Sunday

Entered the kitchen and all seemed in order… food still on powder, no rustling, nothing and we could relax, thanking the LORD that the blasted rat was outside when his thoroughfare was plastered! It was a blessed Sunday indeed and life in our little apartment was back to normal.

Victory dance!

Monday morning

The wife barges into the room and announces, “There’s no food on the powder!!!”

NOOOOOOOOO!!!

 

I am not speaking on this anymore.

I Am Random!

RAT IN ME KITCHEN

The title should be self explanatory but assumption is the mother of all… Also, there is that Reggae tune of the same name which is very apt. Like the singer inquires, so do I… “What am I gonna do?” Well, I know what I did and I’m going to tell you but first, some background (READ: rambling off on a tangent instead of getting straight to it)

I live on an estate in Midtown Lagos (Yaba) and it’s a rather beautiful development, if I do say so myself (even if I had absolutely nothing to do with the development or its beauty but I digress), which I christened New Jersey before I even moved in but as Lynxxx would say, “Nigeria must happen!” meaning that everything but logic is applied in running these digs. So, after all the little Frank Spencer-esque scenarios (doors falling off the hinges; security doors keeping intruders out but also trapping you in; leaking ceilings; showers that produce only hot water etc), MJ’s pal, Ben, coming to pay a visit shouldn’t be much of a surprise, eh?

The theory is that fumigation of the common areas outside would drive critters inside. Fair enough but I want the spray to kill them dead outside, otherwise, what’s the point? Why should they come inside? However, before this ‘vermin spray-day,’ the wife had reported catching a glimpse of something darting in the dark as she entered the kitchen, while I was out of town. It was an isolated random occurrence so we let it slide.

There’s a dude that comes through to help with house cleaning every Tuesday, so our story starts (yeah, this is still the background [cough]) on one such Tuesday…

Tuesday

So, I’m chilling downstairs, right (Did you just respond, “Uh huh?”), watching bad TV I’m sure, while dude is upstairs doing his cleaning thang (yeah, I’m reporting like an African-American brother, probably because I finally watched Baby Boy this week) and out the corner of my eye, what do I see, skip-skipetting out of the kitchen into the dining area?

“Oh, hell naw!”

Oh, hell yes!

It’s a jet-black, fist sized, stinky, sneaky rodent! Not sure I was eating but I lost my appetite. (Okay, nothing can make me lose my appetite). So I hollered at dude like, “Come down yo!”

(before I continue, let’s get things straight… I’m not afraid of rats, okay? What I’m afraid of is getting my toes nibbled; being climbed up [or clambered, even] by Ricky Rodent; rat in my pants; rat on my face; rat in my food; rat in my shoe… all that type of stuff, got it? So I’m not afraid of no rat, I’ll fight a rat! Where he at?)

Anyway, I tell him Ricky ran back there by the curtains, he should search him out.

No Ricky in sight.

Great!

A loose rodent is all I need right now. Paranoia sets in… ‘even if I put my feet up on the table, what if he jumps in my jeans and wiggles up and nibbles away?’

OH HELL NAW!!!

Anyway, we find not Ricky and dude says he’ll get the sticky papers that trap rats and I’m cool with that. I just want to make this go away quietly with the wife never finding out.

Wednesday

Still no Ricky but no Ricky sighting neither and all seems good, although I have it at the back of my head that he’s still in here somewhere. Wife does her kitchen thang, no shrieks or squeals, so it really seems all good till I’m upstairs spending quality time with the PS3 that night and notice something dart behind the window blinds.

‘Please let it be a cockroach,’ I beg as I go into the bathroom to retrieve and position a mop. (It was the handiest weapon, what?) I poke at the blinds; hit them repeatedly but nothing, so I’m convinced it’s all paranoia. Back to PS3 for me.

A few minutes later, Ricky pops out and I reflexively leap forward as we make eye contact and he scurries back behind the blinds.

GREAT!!! This is all I need!

A few more prods but nothing, so, my grown ass self climbs unto the coffee table and pulls up the blinds (wonder if any neighbors saw me but I haven’t noticed any quizzical glares yet – I think) but Ricky Ro is nowhere to be found. This is doing my head in.

The wife comes up a few times and never shuts the door behind her. I always make a fuss, well, more like a comment, whenever this happens but tonight, I’m anal about it. She wonders what’s gotten into me but just dismisses me and I’m slightly panicked now. I have a decision to make. I retire to our bedroom and wait for her to come up. Paranoia is still in the air and the wife is heavy with child, so all that plays in my head is:

“she’s coming up the stairs, blank expression; not thinking about anything really, then all of a sudden, a stank rodent runs by her – possibly ON her – on the stairs and she freaks out, slips, hurts herself, the baby etc (told you I was paranoid) I would just die!”

So, I decide I have to tell her. She walks in and I turn into a soap opera star. “Darling, shut the door please and try to remain calm, I have to tell you something.” You know that thing about women’s intuition? Let’s say I’m a bit firmer in my belief because immediately my words are done, she looks behind herself at the floor as she simultaneously leaps into my arms (slight exaggeration alert), “Oh my God! What???” she quizzes frantically. “There’s a rat in the house…” (cue overly dramatic background music and fade to commercial)

In the immortal words of the Governator…

I Am Random!

(concluding part coming soonest)