Just a number? Is it?

How old are you has ceased to be a polite question nowadays. You’d think one was asking for a menstrual chart or a combination to a safe. I once asked a girl this and she said she’d be 18 this year. This was in January and her birthday is not till November. Maybe I am 17 would have been more appropriate but she wasn’t lying now, was she? People are so guarded about this information that it boggles my mind. People who do this hiding game all seem to desire one advantage and that is to be able to claim they’re older or younger depending on the circumstance that they find themselves. Some people are really moronic about it too and they might as well give up the gambit. How else can you explain a man with seven kids, some of them married, with hair that looks like he was shaved with a machete claiming to be ‘not quite forty yet’.

Some people cannot hide their age and or age group and such a saying as “age is just a number” isn’t far from their lips. Personally I believe that age is just a number too. It is just a bookmark in the timeline of our lives. It is not like anyone can get a double promotion or skip some birthdays into the future and I really don’t see why anybody would be embarrassed that he or she has spent a certain amount of time on earth, be it too small or too much. But for most people who think age is just a number, our reasons for thinking so couldn’t be more conflicted. Most people that say this have something to gain. Sugar mommas and daddas don’t think age is anything but a number. Dolly Parton and Oprah probably think age is just a number. All cosmetic surgeons will tell you age is just a number. But I can tell you with a fair amount of certainty that the folks in one of those retirement homes will vehemently beg to differ. I’ve divided people into three blurry categories based on my experiences with people.

The Brat Club (6 – 17): these guys are generally too impatient and if they had their way, they’d make the earth spin faster about its axis and revolve faster around the sun. That would hardly make any difference but they wouldn’t care. These guys will do anything to appear older. The younger members of this Club measure their height at least twice a day and they will take advantage of even half a listening ear to tell you of all the grand things they’d do when they get older. Things like riding a unicorn into space and stopping by the planet Saturn to get soda and burger. The older ones in this group have different pastimes. Among their favourites are counting pubic hair and imitating their favourite singer’s every move.

The Hybrids (18 – end of middle age): the fellas at APA haven’t said conclusively yet what marks the range for the middle age so it’ll remain ambiguous as it is. This group is the most interesting and consternating for they have almost no common traits at all. A single person from this group is capable of exhibiting so many characteristics (the whole spectrum) that it’s almost unbelievable. It is this group that one needs to be careful about because they can pass off as anything most times. They are the most insecure and shallow people in all the earth. The members of this club say things like they don’t want to be put in a box or draw away attention from their achievements on account of their age. Well, I know what’s worse than being put in a box. It is floating around without a box. You’re bound to be a certain age. How can making it a secret help? If you’re 35 and want me to think you were 30, I may be very bad at judging and think you were 46. Does that make anyone happy? I think not. Despite all their antics, they seldom lie about their age. They just don’t tell.

I know women who will take offence if you called them aunty, which is what they are by the way. They’ll smugly remind you that they’re very much capable of giving birth to you and you should show some goddamn respect by calling them mummy, mama or any of the usual variants. Last time I checked, it was possible to have only one set of parents. Some women will demand your head be separated from the rest of you because you called them madam, ma’am or ma. They’ll ask you if you were blind and can’t see the jeans they’re wearing? Even my mom goes to extra trouble to make sure people know that I’m her son. Not her nephew or her cousin but her son. That way the poor acquaintance does a quick math operation in his head and decides to tread softly.

The Geezer Club (end of middle age – expiry date): this group is my favourite. They are not self-conscious of their age. Instead they’re proud of it. These guys spend majority of their time telling you of stories and adventures that make you think you’d be better off watching paint dry. But since it is the humane thing to do, you stick around. Only one of my grandparents lived long enough to know me at all. The last time I saw her, she was telling me of the last time she witnessed a solar eclipse. It was the most grueling thing. Half the time she went off on an irrelevant tangent recalling redundant details and I ultimately have to bring her back to the eclipse thing. The other half, she spends chastising me as though I was solely responsible for the demise of the old school and the establishment of the new one. All in all, these guys are the happiest of the lot provided they are not sick or queuing for entitlements somewhere or still working to support a good for nothing son who happens to be a fairy or still married to the same dumb broad who just won’t die.

Remember, age is just a number!

iSwear. uSwear. We all swear.

Swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary. Don’t look at me, I didn’t spill that baloney! It was some actor in a movie trailer I saw. Apparently you already know on which side of the fence I am. I’m so $@%#! far on this side of the $@%#! fence that I can’t even see the $@%#! fence anymore. Let’s $@%#! admit it, if we are going to be $@%#! honest, swearing makes communication a lot more intimate if you know what I mean. There are even things you can’t express adequately without swearing. Some of my favourite films feature the most grandiose and exquisite cuss words that it’d be a travesty to see all swearing disappear. I mean, just imagine a typical Guy Ritchie film without swearing. Did you try? Somehow like trying not to think about anything at all, which is impossible because you’d be concentrating on keeping a blank mind……………which is impossible.

I’m not saying swearing is awesome and should be actively encouraged or injected into our school curricula. Actually that’s exactly what I’m saying. It is a necessary evil and like all evils (albeit necessary), it is so much fun. It might even be said to be healthy as nothing gets rid of all the pent up anger and aggression than a good staccato of cuss words. Allow me to demonstrate. Suppose you were a detective and you’ve been on the trail of a serial rapist/killer (whose last victim is someone close to you) for seven years and after a string of lucky breaks, you finally apprehend him. Supposing he doesn’t give you an excuse to accidentally discharge your firearm, execution style, between his eyes and he makes it through trial and gets convicted and sentenced. Suppose you visit him the next day in prison. You’re definitely not gonna say to him: “It gladdens my heart tremendously to finally see you behind bars for all the despicable crimes you have committed, you bad, bad man. I hope you spend the rest of your days thinking about all the terrible things you’ve done to all those poor girls. Sir, it is no less than you deserve, you vile soulless human being.” That is balderdash! Being the psychopath that he is, this nancy pansy speech would have probably made his day. Maybe even his week.

A proper red-blooded human being would stare into his eyes and hold them, then he would say: “Look here you mother$@%#!ing son of a $#*^%! Personally, I think this state consists of a bunch of spineless tree-huggers for not endorsing a death sentence, but in your twisted $@%#!ing case, I am delirious with $@%#!ing joy. I helped put in prison many of the new friends you’re going to make in here. They’re psychos too and ^&%#@s like you, who can’t have a normal sexual appetite, set them into early heat. I hope you get $@%#!ed up your $@%#!ing $%^$^# everyday of your miserable life till you need to wear diapers on account of your collapsed sphincters. I hope you never get $@%#!ing suicidal and endure this for years and $@%#!ing years till one day you die slowly in a pool of your own $@%#!ing vomit and the last thing you see is my face and you remember that I put your mother$@%#!ing $%^$^# behind in here.”

Someone who understood perfectly everything that I was saying is probably more perverse than I am and seeing as I am on the edge, he’s definitely off it and may need to get psychoanalyzed. A person whose speech would have been more like the first example should be shot through the left temple and if he’s as $@%#!ed up as I think, in spite of rigor mortis, he’ll turn the other cheek.

Swearing is a part of the human nature. It is no use fighting it because if you provoke the pope enough, he’d scream at you to $@%#!ing leave him the $@%#! alone. When you’re all riled up, it is the hardest thing not to swear. It’s harder than riding a unicycle with one ear out of commission. If an area boy shouts at you and you say “I warn you my friend, I’m a black belt holder,” he’ll probably give you a black eye before you finish that sentence. But if you had said “I will $@%#!ing $@%#! you up so badly that even your mother won’t $@%#!ing recognize you,” he’ll probably let you finish and may even wait a few more seconds before hitting you and he won’t hit too hard, just in case.

So is swearing a sign of a limited vocabulary? I don’t think so. If you pick up a dictionary and count all the words with the exclamation sign that denotes a vulgarity you’d agree that swearing might actually be a sign of a rich vocabulary. Especially when you consider that those are only the words that are in the dictionary.

A most interesting non-sequitur

It is not what you get, it’s what you give

It is not how far, but how well

It is not by power or by might but by the grace of God

The more cynical reader might have already deciphered where I am going with this. The naïve one will think this is another uplifting article, food for the soul. Well I hate to rain on your parade, sweethearts, but this is far from an uplifting article. It is one to bring you crashing back down to earth where you belong.

The bone stuck in my throat is the word ‘it’. I like the word well enough but ‘it’ seems to have become the sole target of the word rapists otherwise known as motivational writers. Let’s have a look at the first example; it is not what you get but what you give. What is not what you get and what is what you give? I know I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and maybe it is Friday and 13^th on another parallel world but I just don’t know what ‘it’ is supposed to be.  Pose these questions to Mariah Carey for example. What is not what you get and what is it that you give? She’d probably reply “more Grammys and spectacular boners.” Ask a rabid dog if you can get it to understand you and vice versa and it would say “a loving master and rabies”. As for the second example, just don’t tell that to a Kenyan long distance runner who happens to be Masai. If you do, he’d probably shoot an arrow through your jugular and proceed to make tofu rich in your red blood cells.

The bottom line here is that ‘it’ makes no sense and so do the motivational writers who only seem to motivate you to purchase vol. II and then vol. III and then vol. IV of their motivational books only for them to come up with another gig called: The 21^st Century Man; How to Excel in the New Millennium. Seeing as your volumes were all written in the last century, it is not the writer’s fault that the world is spinning and evolving. You might have to get this one too and eagerly await the revisions and re-revisions and new volumes so that you can be properly motivated to face the world’s challenges.

Ever wondered why Coco-cola is/was so successful? The founder never made his ‘secret formula’ public. I guess that’s the point of having a secret formula. The recipe, or whatever it is, was a closely guarded secret. At least this is how the legend goes. In the same vein, no successful individual will ever tell you his secrets (if he has any, other than talent, extreme hard work and a little bit of luck) especially Donald Trump. Can you believe this guy sued someone for calling him a millionaire instead of a billionaire? And you think people like him will write a book titled ‘How to become a billionaire like me’ or ‘The Trump Card.’ Excuse me while I laugh till I’m numb.

Another reason why I’d never read a motivational book is because no successful or powerful person I know or have heard of, maybe with the exception of George Bush Jnr. and Sr., has any idea what a motivational book is. If anything, part of the recipe for success is to stay away from motivational books. Successful people are incredibly smart and resourceful or they were born successful or they rose through the ranks of the Italian mafia or they have a drug smuggling caper going on in South America or they successfully executed a coup in a third world country or they won American Idol and everybody decided they were better actors than singers and won an Oscar to prove it or they married a rich and powerful person who they proceeded to shag to the Pearly Gates, leaving them with everything. The list goes on forever but none of these people know what a motivational book looks like. No sir!

I’m a big fan of lists but these crooks defile the sanctity of lists almost irreparably. Among their asinine lists, the ones that really tick me off are those definitive ones that feature the word ‘the’ as if the list was intrinsically woven into the fabric of reality and is as real and factual as the air we breathe. The Seven Secrets of Financial Freedom. The Reasons Why You Are So Broke. The Six Weapons of Tackling the Demon Called Poverty. Why can’t they say MY seven reasons why bla bla bla? These dumbass and infuriatingly pat titles suggest that they’re only targeted at people desperately clutching at straws.

I realize that in Nigeria now, we have associations, societies and unions of everything you can think of. If there is a profession that has at least one practitioner in say, twenty states, voila, there is going to be an association, society or union of such people. So I guess it cannot upset the workings of our macrocosm if there was an association of Nigerian Motivational Writers and Speakers. I’m vaguely aware I might get sued. If they win the case, as they ought to since they are motivational writers, they’d get, at best, a cheesy apology from yours truly and I will become several times more popular. Maybe I’d write a book. Put a Steve Buscemi lookalike smiling on the cover and I might start like this: You can do anything you set your mind to, except moonwalking forwards and finding a motivational writer who doesn’t think his inane insights (in hardcover) is a fair exchange for your hard earned cash.

P.S. Steven R. Covey and his book; Seven Habits of Highly Effective People are awesome. Old Steve is not a motivational writer and his book is not a motivational book. Notice how he didn’t use the annoying ‘The’? RIP Steve L

Succumbing to vanity

Let’s be honest. It’s some kinda weird vanity that would make anyone wanna write things down and solicit/expect people to read it and what is worse, actually enjoy it. Especially when it’s not some kinda window into the secrets of the universe. At best, it will bring about the usual ‘LOL’ and the occasional ‘LMAO’ and the odd “LMFAOOOOOOOOOO”. I have decided whether I like it or not, I will permit myself this one guilty pleasure. I have given up sex and other pleasures of life. Why can I not blog? No! I must. And I will.

I cannot assure you the absolute best time on here but I can assure you a WTF moment everytime. Welcome.

Disclaimer: Not all my true stories are true.