Exhaust Thing Monday

Hey guys, it’s been a minute. I have been terribly busy since the start of the year so, my posts haven’t been as frequent as they should. Hope you’re good though, traffic and all. I personally have been doing my best to void traffic, I do not need that negative energy in my life this year. But can you really escape traffic in Lagos? I will soon open a GoFundMe for the okada I want to buy. Hope you people will support me even if it means fewer posts. Love you too.

Traffic isn’t the main issue in today’s post. It is a combination of the waywardness of okada men and the presence of vehicles on the road that are not suitable for even animals. One thing I have noticed, my weirdest public transport experiences usually happen on Mondays. This is why my own week starts from Tuesday.

I was running late to work this fateful Monday morning so I decided to take a bike straight to 2nd Rainbow from my house so that I could at least beat the first phase of traffic. Okada riders these days usually charge ridiculous prices so I had to find a cheaper one but, when I did, the inexperience showed on his face and I was almost certain that he was new to the riding business but poverty and faith in God made me enter the bike still. Big mistake.

To begin with, he was riding slowly and this totally defeated the purpose of me calling a bike in the first place. And what I couldn’t understand was how rough he was even while driving at slow speed. Make it make sense. I still managed till we got to Apple Junction. There are traffic lights there so, there is usually a bit of traffic there and the impatient okada men usually ride along the edge of the gutter just so they can avoid the traffic. This guy tried to climb it and I started praying not to fall into the gutter and funny enough, he could not even climb the gutter after trying multiple times. I begged him to wait, that I didn’t mind the traffic, even the woman in the car beside us saw what was going on and was laughing.

But you know how stubborn they can be, he still forced his bike on top and managed not to throw me into the gutter but as he was descending, he lost control and rammed the back of the okada in front of us. Luckily, he didn’t spoil anything and we continued on our way. Got to 2nd rainbow in one piece and realised how dangerous what I just went through was.

I boarded a bus going to CMS thinking the okada incident would be the last of my worries for the day but I was so wrong. First, there was a preacher in the car who wanted everyone to respond to everything he was saying. He tried to tap me a couple of times cause I wasn’t responding and I was about to lose my shit when we heard a loud bang behind the bus and some screeching sounds.

The conductor went to check and saw that the exhaust pipe had detached from the bus and was dragging on the ground. Next thing, the driver brought out a rope from under his seat which made me realise that this could be a regular occurrence for them. We sat in the bus waiting for the conductor to tie the exhaust pipe back to the bus and the preacher tried to resume but this time everyone was too frustrated to listen. Some of us even got down from the bus.

After some minutes, the conductor emerged from beneath the bus, shirtless… We discovered that he had used his hoodie to support the rope he used to tie the exhaust. So now, I had a sweaty, greasy, shirtless conductor standing beside me (cause I sat at the door seat). Also, I was already late for work.

I tried my best to ignore all this cause I was already stressed from all that was happening when an argument ensued between the frustrated half naked conductor and a female passenger.

Passenger: :”where is my change?”

Conductor: *shouts … “I no get change”

Passenger: *shouts back angrily… “why are you shouting at me?”

Conductor: *shouts louder… “why are you dey shout? Did I shout?”

Passenger: slaps conductor’s mouth… “stop spitting on me”

Conductor: *spits, sorry, shouts even louder… “Ogun go punish your papa and your husband”

Luckily, we were at a bus stop so, some agberos that were around came to separate them because it was about to get violent. The conductor was livid; about the slap that the woman borrowed him and was going to retaliate when they stopped him. Woman kept threatening to take him to the barracks but they eventually settled. Little did we know that the conductor was still bitter.

We got to the final bus stop and got down while the conductor gave us money to share amongst us since he didn’t have change. This woman refused to share with anybody and said she wanted her change so, the conductor told the driver to go, and they zoomed of with her change, and a big smile was planted on his face with a disappearing “waka”. Even the person she was supposed to share the change with had left. She stood there, clueless and livid. I was laughing so much internally that i forgot how late I was. Wish I could tell my boss this story.