Old lady

It has been a while I last penned things down, but I think that the experience I am about to share deserves to be made known. This is because I know that I could not possibly have been the only one to have come across this. So, on the first day of May, I took a cab (Korope) from Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex to campus. The cab should take five passengers; one at the front and four at the back. When I got to this particular cab, I saw a lady, busy with her phone at the back seat with her laptop bag on her laps and a lunch bag on the seat. When the next passenger came, I took the lunch bag and gave it to her so as to make space for him. Because it was an holiday and there were few people around, the driver decided to just make do with the number he has.

The lady which I will now call Mama returned her lunch bag to the seat. This was uncomfortable for me, but I thought ‘ babe, take it with a grain of salt. You do not have to be influenced and disturbed by everything around you as one Uncle once said.’  I was adjusting to this when Mama suddenly said ‘adjust!’ I was like Me? Why? She insisted that I should create more space for her lunch box. C’est ridiculous! I was beyond furious but the quiet me that has never uttered any retort publicly just asked her why she could even think of another person being inconvenienced because of lunch bag. Have you paid for the space? 

She said she did not need to have paid before putting her bag there. She continued by saying she knew I was up to something when I first removed her bag from the seat,  that what if the cab man had taken the fourth passenger? What madness is this? Is a bag a passenger, abi iru isokuso wo niyi? Nobody joined this conversation and I wondered why. I had to call the driver to ask him what was really happening. He told mama to place her bag on her laps but she refused. Then I knew she must definitely be a witch. Is this part of the ridicule people with small frame face? Disrespect! Some people can be rubbish and ingredient as my roomy used to say. I am just wondering why people most especially Africans think age must be synonymous with body stature? Have you ever had a similar experience like mine where people think you can be cheated or ride upon because of your small body frame. Let's discuss