Penny Snobs

Of all the currencies around, the penny & 2pence are the most villified by the consumer within the UK. (There is the Nigerian Kobo, but that's for another blog! You might say most citizens from every nation have a disdain for their version of the penny!) Think about it: whenever the cashier gives out change, and they turn out to be pennies, they normally end up either in the charity box on the counter (How generous!), or make there way to the piggy bank jar. Should the pennies be lucky, they might be bagged and taken to the bank and you just might make a profit of either £10 or more, depending on how long you've been saving.

What really cracks me up most of the time is when people totally disregard a penny or 2pence that's on the floor. Not many people pick up pennies, and I guess most people think pennies on the floor is beneath them. How many times have we just walked past pennies, and then realised that all we needed to make a purchase was with that penny?

Yet, I can assure you, if it were to be a wad of £50/£20's bundled, it wouldn't even hit the floor before it's scooped up.

So, whenever you see a penny on the floor, don't turn the other way. Think about it: if you picked up a penny you saw on the floor nearly every day, you never know what the final amount could add up to.
As the maxim goes that "A dog is for life, and not just for xmas", well there should be one that goes, "A penny is for spending, not just for the floor!"

Word of caution: don't focus your attention on the ground and become human currency detectors. You just might ram into someone.

Childhood nightmares and tasty chicken..

There are childhood stories, and there are childhood experiences. Here's one experience I'm going to share with you.

I was about 13 years old, and I had my first real encounter of the production process of how that lovely pot of chicken starts from this:


to this:

Now, before I go any further, a word of caution to readers out there who are either members of PETA, Vegetarians or those who are in complete denial as to how and where the meat they eat comes from, Please Do not Read Any Further!

Now that I've put a warning in place, back to the story. So, my old man comes up to my younger brother and I and tells us to get ready to make dinner. He takes us to the backyard where we have chickens free-ranging. Dad points out to a big black cockerel with a huge red comb on its head, and tells us that "that's dinner tonight. Get it ready."

Now, most of the time, when your a kid and you're being taught certain skills, you rarely think that they will be useful at a young age. Hah! Did we get it wrong or what? So, I took the massive kitchen knife, sharpened it, and made sure I hid the knife and bowl of water from the chickens. Now, if you ever thought that poultry and livestock are dumb animals, think again. They can sense when one of their own is off to the 'Open Field in the Sky'. If you've ever seen the opening sequence to the movie 'City of God' (Citede de Deus), you can sympathise with chickens.

After 45 minutes of fluttering wings and sideway chasing, we finally catch up with 'Black King', the cockerel we had affectionately named. (Point to note: Never, ever name an animal that's going to end up as your dinner! You get emotionally attached!) So, we take him by the legs and wings, and hold him down. We (and by 'We', I mean 'I') then proceeded to finish the job. Now, once you've finished the 'job', the trick is to hold the chicken down until it becomes lifeless. That's what you're suppossed to do. By this time, I was already freaked out killing my first chicken in the first instance, so I had let go. I then understood the saying 'running around like a headless chicken'. The cockrel's headless body began flapping madly from spasms and started running in one direction, my brother and I screaming in the other. All that commotion got my dad out, who eventually restored 'normality' to things. I was so put off by what I had done, that I decided chicken or any other kind of meat was off the menu. So I thought, until the aroma of the chicken being cooked by my sisters and mum changed my views there and then. And when your 13, your perpetually hungry.

I did have a couple of nightmares afterwards of a huge, black headless chicken with its head under its wing chasing after me with a sharp knife!

I wish I could end this blog saying that I never took the role of executioner for dinner again after experience, but the reality tells us otherwise. The choice of either having vegetables for dinner (Gari and shoko vegetable but without the beef, anyone?) or sweet, succulant meat is a no-brainer! Never was a vegetarian then, and I'm not starting now. I'm a Nigerian, for God's sake.

The Bully...

This is a fact: Sometime in your life, you will encounter bullies. Be it at work, in a relationship, school, or even at a party, there will always be a neanderthal who is seriously lacking in moral fibre or humane qualities and has the making of a bully. Many of these species are inadequate cowards and therefore pick on anyone they feel is weaker than them. Even the Devil is a bully. Encountering bullies is inevitable; it's just a question of how you deal with them.

I had my fair share of bullies at school while growing up in Nigeria. Fortunately, I had some friends who watched my back. However there was a particular guy who kept on picking on me. This dude, whose identity will be kept secret (Oh, who am I kidding?? His name is Ayodeji Alebiosu! Name and Shame. NAME & SHAME!!!) He was a big bloke, and he kept hassling me because of my accent, which was a hybrid of some sort. For a whole year, he harrassed me and what he called 'tease', I categorically call 'B-U-L-L-Y-I-N-G'. He never did it around my friends, who would have punched him into next month. But whenever had the chance, he bullied.

What bullies fail to realise is that, eventually, a 'victim' (I use said term generically, because you can either decide to let yourself be a victim or not) will snap. And that's what happened. It was the start of a 3rd term in the 2nd year, and you would have thought that Ayodeji would have grown out of his bullying tendencies, but hey! Cowards will be cowards. I was minding my own business when he came just wanting to pick a fight. Bad move on his part: I was already mad about something else going on in my life at the time, so I just flipped! Now, I used to always think about what Christ said about ''turning the other cheek''. Oh, I turned the other cheek, alright. But not as Christ would have wanted:

It took a couple senior students to pull me off this dude. That was the last time Ayodeji Aleboisu, the bane of my early school days existence, ever bullied me again. Ever.

So, whenever you come across bully, here are a couple of pointers. They may or may not work:

Deal with the bully before he/she takes undue advantage over you, and you become a wreck.

That's my 2 pence advice for the day..

God has a sense of humour...

"Sacrilage!!!!" I hear you say. But, before you burn me on the stake for Heresay, here me out. I believe that the Lord knows what I truly mean, and it's some of the examples that I've lived through that's given me this theory about God's sense of humour.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and in many instances we have no idea how & why He places us in certain situations, but as a Christian, I believe that its all for a reason.

Growing up in Nigeria, I used to take a short cut to my Dad's photographic studio in Orita Challenge, Ibadan. I used to walk by this old, mingy, decrepit house, and I used to say to myself, 'Who would want to leave in a nasty place like that? This place always gives me the shivers!!" About two years later, my family went through some pretty hard times, and we had to move from a lovely flat we were renting at the time. So you can imagine my absolute gobsmacked suprise when my sisters & I were told to clean up that same flat I despised back in the past, only for us to move into. We lived there for about 3 years, and had to make it home.

Fast forward to 8 years ago. Location: West Sussex. I had gone to my cousin's for a party, and after getting on a train to go back to London, I remember saying to myself: "Well, that place sucked!! Who'd want to work or even live in a place like thas??" You'd have thought that I'd have learnt my lesson by now. Hah! So, what happens? Two years later (what is it with '2 years later' and me??) I was made redundant. I signed up with an agency, and they managed to get me a job posting. Guess where: West Sussex! I mean, what are the odds of that??

So, you see, I feel that God has a sense of humour. The experiences that I have gone through have taught me many things. And the joke is, looking back at things, I've managed to laugh with God and those 'humourous' moments.

God bless.