NINETH ENTRY I LOVE YOU BY AISHA)

 
SS3: The mouse race to prepare you for the rat race.
Some of life’s events are easily forgotten, while others remain so fresh in the brain as if they had happened the previous day. To me, an embarrassing moment is that time when one wishes the earth could develop an opening and swallow him or her. The discomfort felt within those few minutes are felt as if time isn’t moving.
How it happened
My most embarrassing moment is still fresh in my memory. Once upon a time I was in my final year in high school, or rather SS3, as we call it in Nigeria. ‘Naive’ was a word that could be used to describe me. Silly things like being popular, dating the finest boy, having the latest shoes and so, were my priorities. Anyway, back then I was dating this boy named Hafiz, he was one of the most popular boys in Abuja, and all the girls liked him. The story of how we met is quite long, but worthy of mention. I met Hafiz at his house on a sunny afternoon in Asokoro when I went to visit his sisters. I went there with my friend Fatima, who was already friends with him. As my driver was pulling through Hafiz’s house, Hafiz was outside. To cut the long story short, my driver dropped us and Hafiz started walking towards us to say hi to my friend. They exchanged their hellos, but he said nothing to me. He just kept looking at me in a way I cannot describe. After exchanging their hellos, we went upstairs to see his sisters and shortly after, he came to the room and just sat there like he was invited. Even though he was totally ignored. Moving on, we eventually left their house with him still not saying a word to me but “seeing” a word to me. Get it?? Seeing? It’s a joke: D.

On our way back home, I kept thinking to myself why he never said a word to me. It bothered me so much like nothing before, but I kept my thoughts to myself and the day ended. Sadly, I woke up the next day with the same thought. I was having lunch when my friend ‘pinged’ me with a following message saying Hafiz wants your BBM pin. I screamed “yes” in my head, “finally! A step close to solving the mystery of not saying a word to me the other day”. However, as a typical Nigerian girl, I had to form before finally giving my pin out. Time went by and I later got to find out that Hafiz liked me and I liked him back, and that’s the story of how we started dating.
The interesting bit maybe
Back to the most embarrassing moment of my life. It was 11pm in Asokoro, on a random night, or should I say unfortunate night, when Hafiz came to see me and I snuck out of the house. I bribed my brothers to cover for me and so they did. Hafiz and I were having a good time standing on a street that was at the back of my house. We were doing things that teenagers did *wink wink* when a car flashed at us and we quickly pulled apart. Guess who was in the car? My MUM!!! At that moment, I wasn’t sure what to think or do. Hafiz asked if he could run and I said yes. Unfortunately for him he fell whilst doing that and so did his phone, two hundred naira note and goal chewing gum. Apparently my mum was with our security guard in the car, so she asked him to chase Hafiz. While the security guard was doing that, my mum grabbed me by the hand and said “shiga mota dan ubanki” – which literally means “get in the car because of your father” but is insulting in Hausa. She kept shouting and cursing at me until the security guard came back with Hafiz. Hafiz greeted my mum, but of course she didn’t answer. Her first question was “kai dan gidan waye”, he answered and she demanded that he take us to his house. She insisted on reporting him to his parents not knowing Hafizs’ parents were separated. The conniving boy took us to his mum’s house in Area 2, knowing she would be more lenient towards him. So we set out on a journey to Hafizs’ house around 12 midnight. Finally, we had reached his house, and so he led us to his mother’s flat. He knocked and someone came to open the door. That was my first time of seeing her. Apparently she was Nupe, which came as a shock to me because he never spoke about it and I never asked. Moving on, both our mothers asked us to kneel down and kept shouting on our heads like all Nigerian parents do. They kept saying stuff like “tun da kun iya soyyayya, toh za a yi maku aure”. Oh God! The feeling felt, only I could describe. I wanted to sink into the ground. So there you go, the most embarrassing day of my life. Just so you know, Hafiz never spoke to me after that day. So much for “I love you” right? Typical (shaking my head). My mother also seized my phone, and I was grounded for a very long time.
Having written this, I would like to say that in high school you can think you’re in love; but I believe you have to know yourself completely before you can truly fall in love and be loved back by someone else.