She came back. She asked if PHCN brought light(electricity) today. I said "No". She sighed and dipped her hand in her purse and lifted a five hundred naira note and gave it to me. She said "buy fuel for the generator, I bought a song on my way home. I just heard the song 'baby dance kolombo, oh kolombo, baby dance kolombo' and I walked straight in, and asked the boy to give me the CD that has that song playing now. He said its a hundred and fifty naira, I asked him if he thought I was those JJC's that don't know its sold for a hundred naira, he just smiled and gave it to me." I smiled, not because of what she just told me but because she just bought a secular music that wasn't a Bongo music. Ah took a look at the CD pack and stared at Reekado Banks, Korede Bello and Tecno's pictures drawn on the pack and ah began to wonder how they got this far, they must have been like me. "Chika!" Her voice jolted me off my thoughts as she reminded me to go get the fuel. I took the money and left. I walked to the petrol station but they've closed due to the fuel scarcity in the country, so I had no option but to buy from the 'black market' sellers in front of the petrol station, the way they positioned themselves inside the premises of the petrol station you'll think its the staffs of the petrol stations that closed down the station to peddle in a more lucrative market - black market. So I bought two liters of petrol at the cost of three hundred naira and headed back home. Ah emptied the gallon on the fuel tank of the generator and turned it on. I went in as she told me to insert the CD in the DVD player for her, I inserted it and waited as it wrote 'loading', it loaded for almost two minutes before it wrote 'this disc cannot be played please check the disc and insert again' I brought it out and checked it and then again I inserted it in, it repeated the same error message then I tried yet again same message kept popping up so I removed it and inserted 'Everybody Hates Chris' and it showed the same error message then I brought it out and reinserted and it played. That was when she sparked and asked me why her CD that made her buy the petrol wasn't playing while 'Everybody Hates Chris' played. "I think its because everybody actually hate Chris so Chris is learning to love himself by playing" was my reply, she smiled as she took the CD from me and left to return and take a new better one from the seller. Within two minutes she came back and gave me to insert it again of which I did and the same error message kept popping out. Then she came closer to the DVD player and began to beseech it saying "play nau, please play, I bought you with my market profit, market wasn't good today yet I bought you because I liked the song in you, please play, I just spent six hundred naira to hear you play, please play" I guess the CD was born deaf because it didn't hear any of her pleas, it didn't play so she took the CD and hide it inside her box and said she'll play it whenever we buy a new DVD player.
Culled from www.italkpass.