Face me, I slap U “11” – Isaacola AA

Episode 10 here

Face me, I slap U “10” – Isaacola AA

Wow, remembering the days when we (my friend and I) make do with ‘face-me-I-face-you’ because of infrequent flow of fund brings the feeling of nostalgia. And at other times joyful tears flows ceaselessly, cascading down along the curvature of my face when memories of my humble beginning come calling.

Is it the endless tussle to use the only toilet in the ten singled rooms apartment that I will not remember? It may be humorous now but it happened for real in coloured motion pictures then and it wasn’t funny.

There was a single mother who lived in room numbered six (then we use the room number for each tenant identity). Whenever it was her turn to wash the toilet (a weekly thing rotated among the tenants), we were always woken up by her incessant rants and cursing. Mama Mulikat, the single mum is always dishing out unprintable words in advance for whoever did not keep the place clean after use.

Her soprano voice rang out the curses to whom it may concern very early on those mornings ‘of blessed memory’. “Whoever messes this toilet will have a messed up destiny” was one of her most popular lines amongst many others.

In the event of a real mess in the toilet, which means her ‘warning prophecies’ have been ignored, nobody dare cross her path that day or own up because water was costlier than beer in the section of town that we lived then.

There was also the constant shouting about missing pieces of meat and fish in Uncle Ralph’s delicious soup kept in the cupboard along the verandah in front of his apartment (room nine). Who the thief was is still a mystery today. Not even Sherlock Holmes could decipher who the mystery thief was till date.

The commotion we witnessed as we queued to use the only bathroom every morning is best left for fruitful imagination. I vividly recollect the jumping of queue by ever busy randy bachelor (room two ) and the mischievous use of bowl to do ‘the major’ (poo) (by mama room four) while having bath in order not to queue twice.

The most outstanding thing that stuck into my subconscious is the cry for help by a spinster one Saturday evening who was supposed to be on her way to choir practise that fateful day. She walked into a room notorious for sampling all the ladies both far and near all by herself without coercion only to start screaming vulgarly in Yoruba language for help with voice laced with erotic passion and fear. No one could really say if she was being raped or she was in orgasmic cloud nine.

Thankfully I am off that setting for good.

Isaacola AA
@newnaija

PS
“Life n Choice” this Thursday will be the concluding part of @tomisinajiboye story.