I opted to post this in the Health section because I realised, for the first time in all my years in Lagos (and that is my entire life) that many are mad in Lagos but few are are confined in asylums. We don’t take mental health seriously enough in Nigeria.
I had left office around 5.30 pm and had not gone far when a junior colleague called me that he had left his entire earthly possessions back in the office, vis his house keys, wallet and phone and the admin office was closed. His excuse was he did not know I would be leaving early. After blasting him for his lackadaisical attitude, I told him where to meet me to get my keys. I was already in transit and the traffic was rapidly moving and If he hurried he would meet me at the traffic light before it turned green.
He drove halfway and had to run the remaining half because of the traffic. He was just about 45 seconds away from me and I could see his approaching form, but the lights had changed to green and we were about moving, so I quickly tossed the bunch of keys on a horizontal signboard on the road median. The dude got to me just as we were about to cross and I yelled at him to go back and check the board. He nodded and ran back.
To my chagrin and ongoing bafflement, he called me back that there were no keys on the board. I told him to check properly, on the sides and even under the board. He rang off, and then called back some minutes later, insisting that he couldn’t find any keys. I was forced to alight half way and go back to the junction where all these drama was unfolding. I thought my eyes were paining me when I checked and discovered that the bunch of keys had grown legs and run off in the 45 seconds/ 1 minute it took for my colleague to reach the point where I had tossed the keys.
That is how me and this boy started rigmaroling the road median like construction workers, searching through dirt and grass for my large, shiny bunch of keys that had mysteriously disappeared in plain sight. After about 30 minutes of fruitlessly searching even in portions of the median that I knew I had passed before that fateful toss, we were forced to give up after admitting to ourselves that a Lagosian had seen me tossing the keys and immediately pounced on them like the lunatic he was.
Kai, it is still paining my spirit, soul and body.
My question now is this: what is anyone going to do with a bunch of keys that is totally useless to him? What?
There is a legion of lunatics roaming freely on this streets of the Gidi.
