Diary of an Honest Naturalista: Week 47

So I found myself in the bus on my way to work, after we resumed from Easter break. I carried my big work bag, as usual. You know those big bags working class ladies who don’t have cars have to carry, in order to contain a pair of flat slippers, portable umbrella, in case of sudden rain, novel, make up bag, etc. Like many Lagos ladies, that’s my regular work bag. It was this same bag that I was about to be robbed from, before I attacked with my naturalista weapon of mass destruction.

The thing about this kind of bag is that they have the ability to swallow anything put into them, as most of them don’t come with partitions nowadays. Because of this, I always make sure my wallet doesn’t travel all the way down, by making sure it is one off the last things I put in my bag.

I had forgotten to arrange the contents of my bag in the most convenient way for me before I boarded the bus. On getting a comfortable seat in the bus, I got lost in thought and reminisced about my recent regrettable hair cut incident. Next thing, the voice of the conductor snapped me out of my reverie, and I immediately dug my hand into my bag to fish my wallet out.

Shoot, the wallet had travelled deep into the bottom of the bag’s ocean. To make matters worse, my wallet is not the long horizontal fat one, but those ones that fold into three parts, so it had more opportunities to get lost.

After using my hand to dig all through my bag without results, and the bus conductor had started flashing me wicked eyes, I decided to use my eyes to search, and looked into my bag. Still, nothing.

I lowered my head further, in order to intensify my search, and about 20 seconds or so later, I finally found the elusive piece of accessory. “Bingo!” I thought, and felt a spirit of triumph soar through me.

I put my head up to display my trophy, but the head refused to obey instructions. What was happening? I tried again, and all I head was “snap, snap.”

A bunch of my hair strands had been caught in the zipper hook of my bag. I had put my now-short hair into a forced ponytail, and part of the hair strands in front had found a way to get themselves out of the band, curled up, and ran into the zipper hook.

By this time, I was the only one in the bus that hadn’t paid. The conductor had left me, gone to other passengers, and come back to me. He was now screaming at me to bring my money. He saw my head down, the way I was twisting it, and probably felt I was acting weird, and probably feigning insanity or illness.

I knew I couldn’t afford to be hasty, and force the hair out of where it was stuck, and the guy’s harassment was already getting to me. With my head still down, and hair still stuck, I opened my wallet, and thanked God I had the exact currency he needed. I took my t-fare out, and with my head down, gave the money to the passenger seated beside me, to pass down to the conductor. From my side eye, I noticed the eyes of the conductor and some other passengers looking at me strangely.

The conductor just shook his head, and sat down, while I thought of the best way of solving my situation. I had just cut my hair, so taking out a blade to cut out the snag was out of it. Besides, I couldn’t tell how many inches were stuck. To make matters worse, I couldn’t even turn my head to see it, so I couldn’t tell if I was getting the hair more stuck. It seemed like nothing was happening. I was frustrated, and trying not to freak out.

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We got to a bus stop, and the passenger beside me alighted, so the next to me moved to my side. He seemed to have noticed my strange posture. After coming into a full understanding of my struggle, he took pity on me, and offered to help me get my out of the rut it was stuck in.

After begging him to take it easy, little by little, he was able to get the strands out, and I heard only about three or four snaps. Not bad for a guy that had probably never detangled in his life.

When he was done, I put my head up, and took a good look at him. He was quite young, good looking, and had a welcoming face. I flashed a very embarrassing smile to him, and said “thank you, I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. You are welcome.” He said, with a slight Yoruba accent, and the added, “but you women are trying o, with all these hair wahala.”

“You can say that again.” I sighed.

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