Thursday, April 23, 2009

LAGOSIAN

Yes i am a nigerian you can tell by my accent -in the words of Banky W
But i am also a Lagosian
Speaking of being a Lagosian, i would call it the heart of naija, the hustle and bustle of the city can be compared with the best of them like new york or paris, like i said in my earlier post i am working now while waiting for my nysc posting, my job takes me to the island* everymorning, i live on the mainland*, well if you live in lagos you would understand that the situation of go slow* in the early mornings and late evenings are really critical especially coming or going to the island because you have workers that are either hurrying to work or hurrying home, thats the life in lagos we dont -stop and smell the roses- every body is always in a hurry, any way back to my jist, becos of the go slow i have to pack my car at the BRT carpark every morning and take BRT to work everyday since -God bless Fashola- he has provided us with a means of transport with minimal go slow, -note that i said minimal- there is still go slow in the parts that dont have BRT lanes, like before you approach EKO bridge , anyway so b4 i leave the house my mum reminds me to lock the steering when i park the car seeing as we are in hard times and i wouldnt want to cum and see my car vanished and in its place an empty space- and turn to all those pple that start looking for car inside gutters and say oh i could have sworn i parked here, anyway thats jist for anoda time-, so i left the house late as usual, so i was in a real hurry, passed all those policemen on the road praying they wont stop me , you see its not as if my papers arent complete but i didnt have time for the hassle of the police that morning, anyway they didnt, i dont know if its because as i passed i deliberately avoided looking at their faces instead i was seriously singing the lyrics to forever by M.I with him, you see am a stouch M.I fan, Anyway get to the park and i talk to the guard "watching" the cars, tell him i would be coming late like 7pm he shouts "ahhh" really stressing it that he closes by 5 and that i would have to pay extra to keep him there i say ok ( you see i dont have a choice even as i close by 5 i have to see my boo every day after work cos there aint no other time ), by now i have like 30mins to get to the office and i dont know what type of hold up* will be awaiting me even in the BRT, so imagine
I FORGET TO LOCK THE CAR TALK LESS OF LOCKING THE STEERING,
so i hurry over to buy my ticket join the queue-YES THERE IS A QUEUE TO ENTER THE BUS- and i am off to work, i barely make it but alas i walk it at 7:55, with 5mins to spare.
so now work closes and TY calls to ask where we would meet, as usual i have no idea and he says okay lets go see a movie and i am like "men babe i parked my car at the BRT park have to go pick it up and i might pass the deadline by the time the movies over" so hes like "okay lets go pick your car up and we will use it to go see the movie or better still we see a movie on the mainland-God bless the BRUCE'S for elevating the mainland to a status that we too have our own CINEMA( ah beat that islanders!!!!)
So i take TY in the BRT for the very first time by the time we get to the terminal we are so tired and stress out but then we see the queue that awaits OMG it was crazy pple have queued even around the bus stop and then i tell TY smiling "baby dont worry its usually like this ( lying thru my teeth even though i know it isnt always this bad) the queue moves really fast there are a lots of buses- you see i really wanted him to experience the BRT cos i had been preaching its gospel for sum time and i wanted him to appreciate our governor, But men it was the worst day to pick, so we queue until we finally get to the front and we can see the BRT buses that are arriving from the mainland they are crazy full as in OMG pple are actually sitting on the steps i am astonished i thot BRT was suppose to be a step above normal danfos*, i turn to TY and smile "em babes you know am not usually here at this time i guess cos its rush hour pple are really desperate to get transport ontop that there is fuel scarcity so a lot of pple park their cars and go on public transport, but my darling boyfriend is smiling he seems to be enjoying the experience, we finally get on a bus thats empty by the time we sit down the conductor lady yells
"STANDING"

and pple rush in to stand and hold the railings in the middle of the bus,OMG it was crazy, so many people standing grazing their sweaty bodies against yours but lucky for me i was sitting inside but TY was outside i really felt for him. There was crazy go slow cos of an accident on the bridge so everyone was up in the BRT lane, even when we got down Fashola's pple had closed the BRT lane cos they were putting interlocking tiles on the side walk.
We finally get to our destination, highlight from the bus and i go pick my car thats when i realize that i didnt lock the doors, i was shocked, i just started thanking God that the car was still there, but not before i checked that my CD player and other things where intact. i heave a sigh of relief and get in the car then the guard walks up to me asking for more tips after i already paid extra this morning(can u imagine) i just look at him , hiss , and drive to Ozone Cinemas.
On getting there i am so excited to see that one of the attendants is my former gym instructor, so i walk up to her and buy student tickets without ID card even though TY and i are no longer in school. anyway we decide to see The International its the Clive Owen movie about corruption i hadnt seen it since cos one of my friends said it wasnt interesting but it was the only movie on the line up that TY and i hadnt seen so we enter the hall and i have to tell you the movie was bronze lots of action in it. and crazy graphic contents like blood gushing out and all that, it was great i ate popcorn an hot dog ( i will resume the diet tomorrow i consoled myself). Mum called me to ask where i was and if i had picked the car and of cos i lied ( i was like em yes i picked it and i was at unilag with one of my friends that it was her bday and i promised i would stop by) its not as if mum would flip if i told her i was with TY but i didnt want her blaming my boo for keeping me out late all the time, you know i like him in her good books you never know......
so that was my crazy day.

Mainland-when you are before the 3rd mainland bridge/cater bridge/eko bridge
Island-after the 3rd mainland bridge/eko bridge /cater bridge
Danfos-small yellow and black transportation buses usually with wooden seats and annoying conductors
Go slow-moving at an exceedingly slow rate, see its different from hold up*
Hold up-not moving at all, worst case scenrio of go slow.

OPTIMISTIC VIEW OF THE DAY, I SAW A GREAT MOVIE AND MY CAR WAS EXACTLY THE WAY I LEFT IT.

6 comments:

Roc said...

Changed the profile pic then..

Can't believe you actually met your car there..

Great stuff..

Roc said...

Singin'..
"I wanna hold you, tease you, rock you, squeeze you.."

As a means to pass checkpooints has got to win prizes for innovativeness!

AliceDCL said...

@ Rocnaija, it was truly a miracle that nothing happened to the car, maybe Lagos is actually changing lol

twagbs said...

we thank GOD about the car because its GOD dat protects us.Nice work my baby u've put me glued to ur blog am impressed.proud of u babes

Anonymous said...

Hahahaha,, wow.. Your car would have got stolent in the quickness!! Nice blog..

The Activist said...

Eko o nibaje o, o baje ti. Hmmmm is all I can say. But you lied a lot for a day o {lol}. Glad you met your car there.
I hope things will get a lot better. That vehicles will queue for us and not the other way round and that we will have no traffic again in Lagos...

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