Only those who have experienced this would be able to gauge how
irritated I was.
On this ordinary day, we went out to buy a memory card for
my phone and on our way back I got us chocolates in an over-rated store. I didn’t
mind the price because I was in one of those sweet tooth moments. When we got
to our colleague’s car, one of our colleagues saw us eating the chocolates and
said, ‘baba na for woman you dey spend money abi?’ and instead of my small man to
either keep mum, or give me the praise, he gave the egotistical impression that
he bought it for me saying, ‘baba na one of those things’ and kept on repeating
it.
On a good day, I would not mind because I have experienced it
a lot of times and I’ve gotten used to it. Even when I was in the university, the
times I bought a drink or snack while strolling with a guy or bought lunch for
us, his friends would assume he did the spending, making it seem like ladies
too like awoof. My chicas in house would understand perfectly well.
When I got home, I was still wandering why some guys loved
doing this, so I asked my aunt. She said it depended on the kinda guy and I asked
if it was right if I made it unknown that I did the spending instead, since
that was the plain truth and fact. She said it also depended on the kinda guy.
Then I remembered
that this particular one owed me N420 since xmas period when I told him to
change some notes for me and he gave me incomplete money. And each time I asked
he would say, ‘it is too early, meet me when we close’ (morning response) or ‘tomorrow,
I have spent all my cash’ (evening response). It got so bad that he used fuel
subsidy as an excuse.
Not like I could not leave it for him but he was playing cunning
and I didn’t like it.
I narrated the above to my aunt and she screamed, ‘you for disgrace
am’ (ha! Ha! my aunt is very practical). I laughed and we made a joke out of
it.
The following day, I got to the office and asked him for my
money and he repeated the cliché. It was as if my aunt spirit had taken over
me, and acted exactly as she said, till he gave me my money (N400 sha). Annoyingly,
he kept saying ‘is it not N420, I will give your N20’ trying to turn the
tables.
In the evening when we got into the car, someone asked why
he didn’t buy chocolates for me and I replied with immediate effect, ‘I was the
one that bought the chocolates yesterday’. Can you imagine the small man lied
to my face and said’ ‘don’t mind her o; I was the one that bought them’. Luckily
for me, his friend in the car who knows him too well said, ‘.....u fit buy
chocolate? na she buy am’.
I felt like telling him to deflate the inflated opinion he
has of himself...
