Did you know that the deadliest concoction in life is a cocktail of pride and poverty? You know you don’t have tiiin yet you are proud in addition. Hunger go kill you. It is the same as being ugly and being arrogant to a woman. You won’t get some to stay with you forever. That is why I don’t bluff to my mother in law’s daughter. Nobody wanted me and she made a mistake of accepting me and I should bluff? For what? No ooo! Ugliness and bluffing don’t go together or else you would have to cook your own food every time. When it is bed time, you may be tempted to watch those ‘useless’ 3-minute movies on phones. The interesting thing about those movies is that, the shorter they are, the better they can ‘energise’ you. When it’s too long, you fast forward it and almost always, you know what will happen in the 21st minute. If it doesn’t, you either scroll back or fast forward to get to the sweetness level. If they are too long too, you feel you are not strong enough to travel such a long distance. It’s a lie o, they are simply make believe. Don’t kill yourself. Those actors are often on some forms of dangerous medications. Do your natural thing and ‘come’ quickly and wear your boxer shorts and go home even if it lasts you one minute. Your liver will be healthy. Don’t try all kinds of medications; they go create more problems for you. A sexually weak man will live much longer than a ‘liver-weak’ man though I don’t know what motivation will keep a sexually weak man alive. Doing what here? The thing koraaa, married people have to be begged to do it while unmarried people are also begged not to do it. You are no longer 25 years old where you you you…hmmm! You isokay!
You see why I don’t trust people easily? In December 1999, one could not afford to fail or trail a paper. The reason was that if you did, you could not resit during the September Conference in September of the following year. The lecturers would need a different Y2K compliant computer to set the questions and chances of passing the resit was very low. But it happened; a paper was trailed. I had to write in September 2000. I was going to write a resit. I was on board a bus with another course mate. Those were the days, if you trailed a paper, you have to go and write September Conference which is usually during the long vacations. On board was another guy. We joined Awudu Isaka bus. The guy told me he was going for a wedding in Kumasi and in an attempt not to expose how unintelligent I am, the reason I failed that paper, I also told him I was going for a funeral in Kumasi. Oh yes, it was a ‘funeral’.
Two days later, I entered the exam hall at CCB and walking into the exam hall was this my ‘wedding’ friend and the two of us were very uncomfortable now. I asked him ‘ei you come? To which he also retorted ‘you too you come?’ ‘But you said you were coming for a wedding in Kumasi but how come you are here?’ He queried me in similar fashion. We both blamed it on Y2K and laughed it off. Sometimes I wonder what the big deal is when one fails a paper. Why try to hide your weakness. Don’t you know that resitting a paper even makes you stronger in the subject area? Abeg, even when you are a sharp brain, once in a while, make the conscious effort to fail and fail well like 30%, with emphasis. No be so? You be God? Learn to fail small la, ah!
That is why I don’t trust some masons in my neighbourhood o. Kwasi last weekend came to knock on my door and when I came out, he said he had some bags of cement to sell. He gave his reason was to sell these 2 bags of cement to me. He said he would sell the two at GHC50 ie GHC25 each. I asked him if he sells cement in a shop and he said no and that he was working for somebody and it was left with two bags. I asked him to give them back to the owner and he was like erm erm. Sensing danger, he spoke grammar asking me: ‘is it for who?’ Why would people continue doing the wrong things and feel good about it? Only God knew what he meant by ‘is it for who?’
This weekend if you want the work done very well within a short time at cheap cost, please don’t hire a ‘leaves’ smoker. Some of them have been adding ‘other things’ o. They can work till ‘the this thing’ evaporates from their system. I needed to do some work on my manhole. I hired Yaw, a mason. The job needed two days at least to finish. 4 bags of cement were provided – 2 per day. One mason, one labourer per the rule. Yaw was expected to look for a labourer to help him.
‘They’ were expected to start work on Friday and finish on Saturday. I visited the site in the evening and saw Yaw working, alone. He was already working on the 4th cement bag. The work was almost completed. Asked where the other mason and labourers were, Yaw just smiled. I had assumed that Yaw had hired another mason and two labourers to finish the work once and for all on one day instead of the two clear days.
I asked him again where the others were. His response shocked me. He did everything by himself because he ‘hired’ himself. He later explained to me that until ‘the thing’ evaporated, he had to continue working till the following morning. Up till now, I don’t know what the thing is o, I can only suspect ‘that plant! But I asked him what his secret was and he mentioned ‘gban gban’. I didn’t understand until recently when I got to know ‘gban gban’ is the nickname for trammadol. Then I remembered my trammadol experience.
I thought Yaw was a very hardworking person who has helped me to save money until last month when I was driving and got to the Adabraka Cathedral intersection of the road and guess who I saw – Yaw! He was half naked, holding a bowl with different types of cooked food items in it including sand – he has gone bonkers! With only one chale worte on, I wept! Look, we have a problem o. Until the clampdown is strong enough, we are destroying our youth. These drugs may serve their ‘purpose’ now but destroy them in the long run, guaranteed!
In my own case I was just feeling a migraine. I complained about it on board a public transport in another West African country to the airport. One of the commuters who heard me complain of headache, gave me a capsule he indicated was a pain killer. He gave me two and asked me to take only one and my headache and pains would vanish. Indeed, it vanished in no time after taking one. I misplaced the other one. I started feeling very light and with some good ‘feelings’. I had concluded this medicine is good. But when I returned to Accra, I was feeling a bit drowsy and hyper at the same time. I was not sure whether I wanted to sleep or not. When I slept that night, I slept quite well but felt I was dreaming about lions and tigers. I woke up very fine but with severe headache at the back of my head. I could feel the veins at the back of my neck stretched and elastic. But I desired for more even though I did not know the name of the medicine till I returned to that same country last year. In my hotel, I gave the description of the medicine to one of the guys I was watching a UEFA league match with and he said from the description of that ‘good medicine’ I was talking about, he thinks it is trammadol. Trama what? He said ‘dol’! Wow! Trust me, immediately, he gave me one as he had it in his pocket. The medicine dey biii waaa. It took me a lonnnng time to ‘land’ when I was with my wife. Looks like I’ve found a remedy to my 2 minutes wahala!
That was it. I returned to Ghana and asked for trammadol and to my surprise, it was available. Fortunately or unfortunately the pharmacist insisted on a prescription. I begged her bcos I needed it just to feel good. She turned me down as I was neither in pain nor wanted it for someone in pain. I hated the pharmacist as I saw her as being wicked to me. That was what saved me. I would have become an addict of this dangerous narcotic pain killer by now.
Abeg, lets fight it harder and watch our children especially those whose classmates may be coming from some other countries. Its effect may be difficult to detect at the onset as the main ‘symptom’ is that it makes a hitherto lazy child become more active. Let us open our eyes before our eyes open us to a junky youth o, yoo!
