By @Poca_huntas
I felt my legs weaken under me that very minute, I wanted to jump out of my skin, I was weak...I began to see all my efforts & hard work crumble before my very own eyes, I could picture the tears on my mum's face, I could even paint the look of disappointment my brother would give. I knew that nobody faced that panel and went scot-free in the school... except you had connections, which I didn't. I knew other people that had other people had 'runsed' their way from year one to final year and had gotten away with it. I tried it, I just tried it once and my life was doing a roller coaster before me.
I summoned courage and went to the senior lecturer's office to plead my case, when I got there I met other culprits like me and they had fished out all other courses that they had runsed and they were already in deep problems (that "problems" is formality, the word is shit, they were in deep shit!) . As soon as the man sighted me, he began to scream “YOU!!! What's your problem? Should I call it foolishness or peer pressure? I understand these empty skulls that fell from dumbville, but you wrote well in the hall why did you want to do this? I've gone through your records and I noticed you didn't do any other one, you just chose to destroy your life with an elective course? Yours is such a sorry case".
At that point I was crying profusely, I didn't know what to say or do (as a yoruba girl, one tiny voice I never knew existed in my head before then started to tell me how my father was snoring in heaven! The guy was deep in sleep and he had allowed my mother's enemies catch up with me). Senior lecturer showed me all my results and I passed them and wouldn't be having any issues if I hadn't taken that course. I remained there and I kept pleading and begging, the lecturer told me he could help me but I was going to have an extra year because I would have to re-write the course. I kept begging and he said he couldn't cover up for me, even I knew that because he was a pastor.
I went home and all my friends had gathered and were waiting for me...they were sympathizing with me already, one was even crying with me. It was like I had just lost a close relative ( I didn't even get as much sympathy when my dad died), I felt like dying. I began to think of how I'd make the dreaded phone call to my mum, she'll be the one to tell my brother because that one likes to behave like a soldier. I was beginning to determine what I'd do with my life, considering the fact that I don't have any talent. But if I had known that a song like Tonto Dike's would get such great number of downloads even though I'd rather listen to the sound of my generator than listen to any of those auto tuned nonsense again, I'd have tried my hands on singing. As terrible as my voice was, it would have sounded better than Tonto's with even less auto tune but since I'm not popular and haven't been able to "date" any producer maybe I'll just learn a craft like hair dressing but I hate salons, getting my own hair done is enough trauma already or I'll learn tailoring but that would make me one of the crazy people I curse every Saturday there's an aso-ebi party.
You and I know that only a few tailors would make heaven, those people can be annoying. Anyways, since I couldn't decide on any craft to learn and practice I decided that I'd just be a full time runs girl. Its really not as bad as you think, I'll just get two permanent rich men that would be paying my bills and I'll probably open a shop and start doing business, if I don't get as foolish as 80% of the runs girls around and use all the money for clothes and hair which I'm sure that's what would have happened eventually. Listen, there's really nothing in being a runs girl except of course if you're a virgin, as long as you're sexually active whether with your boyfriend or other men, we're all sinners. If I can sleep with my boyfriend who I'd have to cook for after and not get anything except its my birthday or val's day, why can't I sleep with a man whom I can refer to as my married boyfriend where I'd just call room service to order my food and get loads of cash when I'm leaving (that's me convincing myself into my newly found profession). I know what you're thinking now, what if I get pregnant...well, I'm not going to be the first runs girl.
People before me have done it and they've being having their way with it, mine won't be an exception. In totally unrelated gist, there was a certain girl at the time who was my friend. Tinuke was a runs girl and she was proud. The first time I saw lace wig in my life was on this girl, she traveled to dubai and made the hair from there, her own runs wasn't all these smelling 50k runs, she didn't even do local runs. She used to travel out of the country to meet her clients (that's d kind of runs I was projecting; I'd even make invoices and send to my clients in advance).
Tinuke had gotten pregnant like five times already but it was no big deal, her doctor was an expert in getting the "excess unwanted blood away from her system before it began to form". Sometimes she would just take some tablets and everything would be fine but it happened that she got "hooked" again but didn't discover until the pregnancy was about 12weeks. She took the usual drugs and even traveled to london to meet a client. She came back after two weeks, took a test and the baby was still developing. So she went to her expert doctor to do the main thing, it didn't last up to 5minutes before the doctor finished and declared her fit for the "Labour market" once again. After a while, she started falling sick and we took her back to the hospital and the doctor said she was five months gone.
She started shouting at the doctor who insisted that he performed the operation on her and added that she was probably pregnant with twins and he succeeded in getting just one of them out. She instructed him to carry out the second one and he did. Two months later, Tinuke passed out in school and we had to call her mum to come and get her. Her mum took her to their family hospital and the doctor said she was 7 months pregnant and had to be placed on bed rest or she would lose the baby and her life. That's how Tinuke had a cute bouncing baby boy after taking abortion pills and doing D and C twice and she couldn't tell which of her clients got her pregnant. That halted her career, and who knows it would probably have been the end of mine too.
I began to say a prayer in my heart, I was whining to God, reminding him of how I used to go to fellowship every tuesday and go to church every Sunday, I had a new dress or a new hairstyle. I had never been more frustrated in my life. One of the girls in the room that day wasn't really my friend, she was my friend's friend but you know how girls are now, wannabes always famz hot girls (even though she didn't know that her parents were far richer than mine but Don't blame her, it's cuz I have packaging sha, dayum!) And that's what that one was always doing. As I was narrating my ordeal to them, of how my destiny evaporated before me earlier that day and wishing one of them had been smart enough to get a pen and send the script to a film producer or a novelist, we probably would be rich by now, I mentioned the lecturer's name and my friend-by-proxy's face lit up. She hugged me and told me not to worry, that my issue would be resolved and I wouldn't have to face the school panel.
Everybody turned to her at once the way everyone grabs their charger and hustles for a socket whenever they bring the light or we contribute money to fuel the gen, yes you got it that's the picture! Then the questions started rolling in. Of course she didn't know which to answer first so she just said to the whole house that she would help me but couldn't tell them how.
