NAIJA AND EXPIRING DATES

                                      NAIJA AND EXPIRING DATES
  So I entered this particular shop one particular morning. The shop looked very tush at least from the outside, the inside was another Lagos story entirely. Anyway I wanted to buy Johnson Baby powder so I picked the dusty thing and went to pay. On getting there I realized the powder was going to expire the next day ooo.
      Jesu!
I sharply ran to tell the Igbo woman, who owns the shop ''Abeg madam, this thing has EXPIRED oo''.
  She looked at me and next thing she said was...
    ''You be Nigerian, u no know say, you go still use this thing for 5 more years. Even 5  years later you go find another one wey don expire 10 years and still buy am''
I wanted to faint oo, the way I threw the thing and ran out of the shop ehn, you would think Holy ghost fire was pursuing me.
The way expiring dates have little or no values in Nigeria these days ehn...
    I mean have you ever bought gala and yoghurt out of one frustrating hunger, only to find out halfway through your chows that it has expired.
        Loool... did you throw it away?
Let's even take it deeper...
So my very Yoruba aunt and I went to the market to buy fowl oo (sorry CHICKEN, only Igbo people say FOWL) that was how all the small small chicken were expensive and the only cheap one had two heads...
 Dear Non Nigerians,
   I know you would think the chicken has expired or something, but do you know Hausas and Igbos would start thinking ''Extra chicken, Extra chicken...''
Well, people like my Idanre aunt and I left sharp sharp and started pleading the blood of Jesus.
    Wo!, Trust me, we anointed ourselves at home.
Thank you for reading and don't forget to leave your thoughts and comments behind, and check the blog everyday.
P.S: Nigerians, you've have gat to chill with the underration of expiring dates.
 Photocredit; cartoonstock.com

MY TAILOR'S PITY PARTY.

        So I was at the tailor's shop on the 31st to collect my family's thanksgiving clothes which was given to the tailor just a day before, could not believe it myself, but she was almost done.

(And they were nice too, i should add)

Anyway, I was waiting for her to make some corrections to mine, when my elf ears started hearing things ooo. The tailor started saying...

 ''Ah leni ni 31st, some people are dying right now, some people are even dead, some are about to have accident, some are sad...''

    Jesus Christ!, if you see the kind bad look wey I give am ehn, you would not believe I had it in me. I don't get it. Is it a Yoruba people thing or just tailors? Why do they (Yorubas) naturally more than others tend to drift to the bad bad things sef (and i am saying this after plenty plenty study and by the way i am Yoruba).Besides how many Yoruba movies have you watched.

      Okay forgetting it being a Yoruba thing, But why do people in general ? Even preachers this days would give an entire sermon about hell or how some people were caught in the chapel the other night for...(only a particular group of students would understand that one 😈) or how people died last night or a plane crashed and yours didn't or something.

      For real we have all have faced some terrible things over the past years, Strange diseases...(that Ebola period ehn...), terrorist attacks (abey,who knows when Libya would stop being a country?), Trump becoming the president  (Lool, kidding i actually like the guy). I know that it is actually quite easy to focus on these terrible things and see them, than the good things that are actually there lingering around us. It might be easy to gain perspective on life by focusing on the bad, but you really don't have to.

    You can MAKE yourself  focus on the positive, the good, on the things you do have, instead of throwing yourself a tailor's pity party to to gain perspective on things, I mean doesn't being grateful and happy beat the pity party, it is even bad for your health sef in case you don't know. Just be thankful instead. Oh pastors, please go back to preaching hope and happy happy things too

     The New Year buzz might have died down a little bit, Well, apart from those fasting, but I hope this is something to take through this year.

    Photo credit: google images

                            REALITY BEHIND THE DEATH OF MR NEW YEAR RESOLUTION.

     Everybody knew Mr New Year Resolution, he was a very nice man, very kind to all of us, he was very huge with broad shoulders and huge promises, he was soo kind that we all wanted to write to him at the end of each year and watch him smile back at us. We loved him and knew he loved us too. 

    Unfortunately he died, sometime around 2012/2013, his death was so unheard of, unknown, nameless. See, we all didn't know when he died, how he died or even where (almost like Moses in the bible) we were devastated, but his death was a good thing for us, because then we got to really see who Mr New Year Resolution was, how mean he was.

    He was a man that filled us with the Ideology of a perfect year, we got to have the christian complex of ghen ghen... this is my year...we went into each year expecting no troubles, no challenges, expecting it to be different from its previous, smooth, easy. But it always almost wasn't, but at least we got to meet his sibling...Mr Unfulfilled New Year Resolution.

     His sibling was quite mean and we all knew it or so we thought. We are in doubt of his cruelty now because he taught us about the myth associated with his brother, the fantasy we created on our own.

      Maybe that is why his death is so nameless and unknown, because fantasies are, you can't enter into a new year really expecting every thing to go your way, there would be challenges, difficulties even, somethings you would not even see coming, there is no perfect year... BUT GREAT LESSONS IN THE IMPERFECT SITUATIONS. You have got to make the best out of them and there is no Mr New Year Resolution, just us with our goals expecting the challenges and moving ahead against all odds.

      With that let me tell the 50% that met Mr New Year Resolution brother, this few important-to-me-things to avoid in 2017...

    1. Don't be like me

Last week, I wanted to buy a carton of Indomie and because I bought it 1800 Naira the last time, I went to the market expecting it to be the same...SHOCKER! it was 2100 Naira everywhere (mo para ehn) .Point being don't set 2016 as a basis for 2017, go in expecting things to be different, new. Don't use 2016 business plan for 2017, you only get lessons from the past not live in them.

     2. Don't be like me  (part 2)

2016 really just felt like it passed by for 50% of us (really praying it is 50) and I figured a solution out for this one, you have get busy with something you love doing. In this century they are limitless...Photography and the rest.

 It is really almost like having a purpose special to you and you alone, hoping this is solution, it is mine tho, you have to figure out yours. So the year doesn't just go by and you remain where you are.

      

RUN AWAY FROM SOLA.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

8:32 AM

             I know her because she lives with me, she sleeps in the bed next to mine,  she's my roommate and

You should beware of her because she has a negative vibe.

She can pull you straight down from that high ladder  you are climbing, she can cut that tiny thread you survive on and she can kill that little fire starting to brew, right inside of you.

              She keeps saying…

Tolu you can't even dance, Tolu you can't even sing, Tolu you can't even take those pictures.

              Tolu would turn and be like…

''Sola, keep quiet and say something positive for once, quit talking about people's flaws alone''

''Am just joking'' would be here reply

             But NO! she wouldn’t stop, she just kept going on and on…

''In fact Tolu what can you do…''

              And after several and severe talking to and she didn’t stop, guess what Tolu did…

                     

And with that, she RAN

So if you have a Sola or lots of Solas in your life,

 my dear don’t wait for a single second. ''RUN''

THE WALKING DEAD…

Saturday, February 14, 2015

11:55 PM

Dead, long gone…

Buried in dug out graves..

They are late, and yet alive, dead and still living amongst us…                

They are the walking dead.

 They are like alive ghosts living in our world of the living ,

They are the unseen and yet seen in our daily business at work,

Infact they are the reason we're working.

They are the reason, we understand somethings, the way we do.

Like why the stone we throw up, always come down(ISAAC NEWTON)

Or that 24 years in prison doesn’t kill, but moves us closer to the purpose for such sacrifices (NELSON MANDELA)

Even that its possible to head NAFDAC and not be corrupt (DORA AKINUYLI)

These important figures are dead, yet their works and legacies would forever remain;

So we should all strive hard in this world of the living and dead, so we can leave a legacy too.

                                                                                     written and edited by likinyo tolulope
                                                                                               who is doing this for legacy reasons.

 

 

 

THE  TYPICAL (AFRICAN) NIGERIAN MOTHER.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

10:42 AM

                  According to the  oxford dictionary of  the Toluexpress edition. A Nigerian mother is defined as: a grown up woman, who expects you to know how to speak your native language wella. (because of its frequent use in Toluexpress.blogspot.com).

            A Nigerian mother is someone who would rather hear ''mama mi'' ''ye mi'' and probably''momsi mi'' than the British or American culture of mothers, who knows only ''mom'' and ''mummy''.

           she's someone, who would tell her daughter from a tender age, to always run away from boys, unless she would get pregnant and at an older age, ask why she isn't married.

            she would give you money below the standard price of a good or commodity, she needs you to buy from the market, (because she expects you to price everything).

                        

Oh! She does that a lot.

     A typical Nigerian mother would shout at the top of her voice, every time you do something wrong.(that's how she gets the house neat all the time too/scare away the croak roaches and rats).

  And when she's finally calming down, would say. 'I don’t know why you did something like that ehn, LATER YOU WOULD SAY AM SHOUTING''…

         You can't talk relationship or social life talk with her, unless you want to end up …. (hmmmmn), you can only talk about what food, you will prepare that night/what papa mi wants to eat.

       If you fall sick and you're being sent home from school, BAM! You will enjoy shege  , but she will not cease to tell you how much school work, you're missing and how you have a lot to catch up on, when you get back.

        In all of these things, we embrace her and love her better than popsi, because of her beautiful heart.

      If you find this amusing, then I believe Toluexpress has defined a Typical (African) Nigerian mother well enough for you, even to be able to have its own dictionary and quit supplying help to oxford dictionary management team.

 

                                                                                     written and edited by

                                                                                   Likinyo tolulope

                                                                        a-soon-to-be-Nigerian-Mother.

 

 

Photo credit:ofilispeaks