Its been a long while I tried writing anything, but this night I'm going to revisit that long-forsaken hobby; not because I have anything meaningful to write, its just that sleep has decided to elude me this night, again.

I must have done something really bad to piss that sleep dude off coz 'he's' been really avoiding me these days. But what could I have done, bleep his girlfriend?

Well, you can't categorically rule out the possibility of that happening, going by the adventures I've had in the 'land of the girls' in the past 12 months or so. If there was to be a presidential election in 'fuckland', I'd win landslide, without rigging. Anyways, that's story for another day.

This night/morning I think I'll just write about how I met Izi; wierd name right? Well, its the short form of one Edo name like that, Izisumtnsumtn (I've forgotten....hehehe....if I know the full names of all my girls then I'll most likely not have room for anything else in my head). She told me it meant...ermm...gimme a sec...ermm....I've forgotten (it doesn't matter anyway, does it?).

I woke up that morning with the same reluctance to get out of bed I've been having for over a month. What was the point of getting out of bed early anyway; ASUU (Academic Staff Union of Universities that is, not the name of a calabar soup) was tired of playing defence and had decided to strike, the only reason I was still in school was because my project supervisor mandated me to stay back and carry on work with my project, my room mate, Wale, had gone home like a month ago, house mates also...I was practically alone in the world.

I was feeling weak and had a slight headache. I had barely slept. I opened my eyes slightly and allowed them scan the room for a while; the 9-inches matress I laid on was at the left corner at one end, adjacent to the wall that held the only window in the room. To the right was the giant-sized wardrobe big enough for 5 people (which is actually a building design error considering the fact that the room couldn't even conveniently house 2 people). The wall opposite had a mini wooden reading-table nailed to it, with two green plastic chairs sitting behind it. Everything in the room was green; the rug, the curtains (which had golden flowery patterns), our bathing bowls, even my towel (no, that one is lemon o....no o, I think its harlequin, haba, that's artichoke now....Mr man, this thing is Jade.......see, I don't know, if you like you can come and confirm the colour yourself). The LG home theatre sat like a chairman beside the wardrobe, facing the door, its speakers hung on the four corners of the room close to the decked roof. Overhead was the ceiling fan and the light bulb that hung precariously above it (Wale did a nice unethical job of suspending the bulb with the same wire that supplied it after the lamp-holder broke, genius....I'm sure that thing will drop one day though).
I reached out and pulled the duvet over my head, it was too early for me to get up. Just then my phone beeped. It was a text message. I was almost certain it was one of those rubbish mtn 5608 messages. I reluctantly reached for the phone from under the duvet, brought it close and slightly opened my left eye to read the message.

Sender: UBA

I didn't even bother to open the message. I sprang out of bed with the vigour of a hungry lion that just saw two gazelles making out in front of it. I almost jumped right out of the room. The wave of excitement coursing through my body didn't allow me stand upright. I was dancing awilo, alanta, kukere and ethigi all at the same time. Any mad man that saw me at that time would have called me his partner in progress. And did I mention I was totally unclad. I started shouting 'yes', trying hard to surpress d noise by fastening my upper set of teeth to the lower ones, and hitting the air so hard with my clenched fist like I caught it bleeping my girlfriend: you'd have thought I scored a world cup-winning goal.
You couldn't blame me though. I was completely broke, the last hard currency in my wallet was twenty naira, and you'd only hear echoes if you tapped my bank account with the back of your middle finger.

I had squandered my monthly allowance and it was not even middle of the month yet, so calling my dad for more money was totally out of it. I had phoned my brother to send me money and all he said was 'I'll think about it'. And my brother is the type that when you ask for money and he tells you he'll think about it, you had better start looking elsewhere. In short, I had no hope of money coming in from anywhere. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was out of foodstuff too. I ate my last cup of rice the previous morning...and hadn't eaten anything since then. So you can imagine how happy I was that my brother eventually sent me money.

I slipped into my perry cole boxer shorts, picked up my toothbrush from my wardrobe and dashed out to brush my teeth. I dashed back in, applied toothpaste to my toothbrush and dashed back out again. I dashed in again to pick my cup, filled it with water from the black 25litres keg that was just outside the room, and then finally went outside to brush.
All through, I was humming p square's 'chop my money' and dancing like the song was actually playing (out of all the songs I could hum it was chop my money....chop which money).
After brushing, I dashed to the bathroom and had the fastest bath I'd ever had: rubbed my body wit soap, scrubbed for some seconds, poured water on my head, and was out of the bathroom before the water touched the ground.
Still humming 'chop my money' I hurriedly applied cream to my body and hair, and slipped into my blue skinny jeans and my red and black polo shirt. Brushed my hair while standing in front of the mirror, rearranged a bit and smiled at the fine boy I was looking at in the mirror and pishaun, I was out of the room.........and pishaun, I was back in the room again, picked up my wallet, my phone and my rolex wristwatch, and looked around to confirm I had not left anything while I wore my wristwatch on my left hand. I said bye bye to the fine boy in the mirror, stepped out of the room and locked the door behind me. I slipped my flip flops on and strolled out of the house in my flyness.

I stay on ede-road (OAU students, sounds familiar abi?) House 26. The house is just by the road side. The walk down to school gate was quite a lengthy one, but I aint giving no bike man my hard-earned 50 bucks, never had, never will (besides, I didn't even have up to that on me that glorious morning). So I set out on my journey with a strange but delightsome swag. Even my gait was proud. I took every step cautiously and looked upon the world like I owned it.

The breeze was blowing calmly and gently swaying the trees on the other side of the road. It smelt sweet. Cars were speeding past as usual and the noise of tires rolling over coal tar filled the dry air. The sun looked like it had a smile on its face, it burned with mild intensity and I felt its heat bore gently into the pores of my skin. Funny how a little largess in your bank account could make you see the world differently.
Everything was beautiful, except for the little pang of hunger that was hitting at the left side of my stomach. But that was to be dealt with accordingly very soon. I planned to first withdraw 1000 naira and have a very good meal at forks and fingers, then go back to withdraw the rest. I could already picture myself opening the door to the restaurant with my left hand, taking my right foot in first as I strode majestically in. I could picture the smile on my face as I placed my order; fried rice and jollof rice mixed, 150, plantain, 50, spag, 50, one meat one fish and one egg, with one bottle of 50cl coca cola, no, maltina, it had to be maltina. I could picture myself putting the first spoon in my mouth, my teeth munching vigorously on the grains, I could feel the muscle of my throat pull the half-munched grains through my throat and I could feel the mixture of the grains and saliva land with a loud thud at the bottom of my empty stomach. I could see myself take a gulp of the chilled maltina and......damn, a dash of my left foot against a stone jolted me back to reality. I've never really been able to grasp which one meant bad omen; dashing your left foot or right foot against a stone, but for that morning I believed the left foot had to mean good omen, I mean, what could possibly go wrong, I had a big fat juice in my bank account, I was about to have the best meal I'd had in days, I felt like a big boy.

I had been walking for about 3 minutes now, as I approached olubuse junction I noticed a girl approaching from the other direction. I could see her with the corner of my eyes but I didn't turn my head, I wasn't in the mood for that kind of business that morning. She wore a red flowing shirt and black leggings, she had long hair that swayed behind her as she walked. From the little I could make of her face, she was very pretty, she looked like Beyonce, Christiana Milan and Rihana all packed in one body; with the right curves in the right places.
I kept walking coz I had no such intentions that morning, besides it felt like a wrong day for cupid to be that fair on me.

She joined the road and was walking right behind me. I slowed down my pace so she could walk past me coz I wanted to at least have a better look of her 'before', but she didn't; I noticed her pace slowed down too. Well, I didn't really care that much, I quickly pushed out the dirty thoughts that were fast occupying my mind like it was Occupy Nigeria, and replaced it with a more delicious thought: that of the captive in my bank account waiting to be set free.

As I got to the school gate an empty commercial bus stopped in front of me;

'Carbus!'
(even Wole Soyinka can't teach these ife drivers to correctly pronounce 'campus')

I hopped in and sat in the seat immediately behind the driver, hoping the girl that had been walking behind me would sit in front coz I really wasn't in the mood. She didn't. She sat right beside me even though there were a thousand and one other places she could sit in the bus.

Well, since apparently a jobless angel took time to arrange that meeting, I decided to make a lazy approach.

'Hi'

She turned her face towards me, beaming the cutest smile I had ever seen. Her lips parted slowly to reveal the most perfect set of white teeth in the world. The voice that conveyed her reply was such that could make you fall asleep;

'Hi'

And so it happened that as we journeyed from campus gate to campus we talked about almost everything.

'So what's your name?'

'I'm Izi'

'You're easy? Seriously?....uhm, well, I love challenges but I'm beginning to believe some good things in life do come easy'

She smiled (oh I love it when she smiles).

'No I mean my name is Izi, as in I-Z-I, Izi'

'Oh, my bad, I'm....

When the bus finally got to bus stop, we exchanged bb pins and said goodbyes. I walked straight to Skye bank. All the sweet thoughts rushed back to my head; the end to my cash drought, the sumptuous meal I was about to have. I hurried my steps and soon I was standing in front of the ATM.
There were very few students on campus so I was the only one at the machine. I inserted my card and tapped my fingers nervously on the machine as I waited for it to respond.

Enter pin

Proceed

Withdrawal

Savings

No

N1000

I continued tapping my hand waiting for the melodious 'counting sound' of the machine.

"INSUFFICIENT FUNDS"

"Do you want to perform another transaction?"
Hell yeah.
I went over the procedure again.

"INSUFFICIENT FUNDS"

"Do you want to perform another transaction?"
Definitely.
This time I checked my account balance.

526.12 NGN

I could not believe my eyes. With shaky hands I reached inside my pocket and slowly brought out my phone. My eyes were already bulging with tears so much that if Noah was still alive, I'm sure God would have immediately instructed him to construct another ark; I was about to cry a flood.
Tears started flowing freely and was dropping on the screen of my phone as I read the supposed credit alert:

Sender: UBA

'Dear Olusegun Adenaike, always use UBA ATMs for your cash withdrawals. Available and accessible 24/7; ATM issues are quickly resolved when you use UBA ATMs'

I was sweating profusely and feeling cold at the same time. My legs turned to jelly and could no longer support the weight of my body. I leaned forward and held the machine for support. I was vibrating from head to toe like a brand new Nokia 3310. At that moment I wished a baby angel would just start playing with the trumpet and mistakingly blow it. I was perplexed, confused, disturbed, worried, broken-hearted, bitter, angry, sad,......and above all I was very hungry.

I felt like I was going to pass out, just then my phone beeped again. It was an sms. I slowly brought the phone close to my face and tried to read the message with my teary eyes;

Sender: UBA





The End.

Wow.very interesting and funny story.finish up pls.would love 2 know what happened

This can't be the end o, continue jor

Lolz, thanks guys, but that really is the end of the story. Its just a short tale I wrote out of boredom, not something I plan to continue. But thanks for reading and commenting.

Nuges11: Lolz, thanks guys, but that really is the end of the story. Its just a short tale I wrote out of boredom, not something I plan to continue. But thanks for reading and commenting.

I see no connection between Izi and the story.

@ Op great stuff, NMH but the story and the name

joor o...great Ife! articulate Ife! greeeeeeeeeeeeat!
nice story.... sorry for d disappointment.... moral lesson -don't count ur chicks before they r hatched!

HumbledbYGrace: @ Op great stuff, NMH but the story and the name

yemi2plus2:
I see no connection between Izi and the story.

Well, I probably should have given the story a different title, but that was the only one that came to my head as at the time of writing. Anyways, just ignore the title and enjoy the story. Thanks.

Oppy16: joor o...great Ife! articulate Ife! greeeeeeeeeeeeat!
nice story.... sorry for d disappointment.... moral lesson -don't count ur chicks before they r hatched!

Greatest Ife!!!!

LMFAO...Classic dude. You seriously need to continue this piece tho... doesn't just end right.

SirElaw: LMFAO...Classic dude. You seriously need to continue this piece tho... doesn't just end right.

Thanks bro...........ok I will

Going by popular demand, I've decided to continue this story. So fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride.
As for how often updates will be, well, I'll ask Izi and get back to you guys....and as for people who only view without dropping a comment, please repent; your comments, criticisms and suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks

Sender: UBA

By impulse I hurriedly opened the message, I pressed the enter key so hard that the track pad almost came out from the back of the phone.
It must have been the 'fog' in my eyes or hunger was starting to interfere with the proper functioning of my brain coz the text looked something like this:

A+-_"*#!?(
A//?:2XX..10X
A"":N«±^%÷.00
R><€:C¤” S»%~ /0483XXX/OAU
By:%“±=~]$•bj 13:13:55
»»»: N÷¤•¥€.09
FDBCK?CAL 012808822

I wiped my left eye with the back of my left palm and read the message again. This time I saw the letters clearly:

Alert:Credit
Acct:2XX..10X
Amt:N25,000.00
Rmks:CDB SELF /0483XXX/OAU
By:22-Aug-2013 13:13:55
Bal: N25,526.12
FDBCK?CAL 012808822

Words can't describe the feeling I felt after reading the message the third time. I could have expressed the joy in so many ways; I felt like screaming, jumping, running round the building, rolling on the floor; rather I just smiled.
If you've never had to hold your pee for hours before finally finding a place to 'do the business', then you won't fully understand how I felt.

The ATM had already timed me out and had expelled my card, so I took it out and inserted it back in. I punched in my password and as I was about going on with the procedure my phone rang. It was my brother. I picked the call and greeted him. He said he just sent me some money (if only he knew I was already in front of the ATM). I thanked him heartily and ended the call. I withdrew N10,000 and made my way to forks and fingers. As I opened the door of the restaurant a strong smell of different sweet foods hit hard at my nostrils. I've entered the restaurant umpteen times but it looked slightly different that morning. To the left was a mini stall where they sold drinks and snacks, it had two giant-sized refrigerators, a coffee dispenser and a popcorn-making machine. The far right is where you make orders and get served. The rest of the room was filled with plastic tables, each surrounded by three or four plastic chairs. Hanging from the ceiling were decorative lights of different colours. So what was different? I couldn't really place it. Maybe it was because there were only three or four people seated and eating in the restaurant, which is actually a rare sight in forks and fingers. On a normal day, you don't go there when you're 'too hungry', the sight of the long queue alone could make you lose your appetite.

I walked down and ordered my food, just the way I had imagined it, with a bottle of maltina. The lady that attended to me smiled as she listened to my order, she must have seen how hungry I was. She entered my order into the computer in front of her and printed my meal ticket. I gave her a thousand naira note and she gave me my change and my meal ticket. I then walked over to where I'll be served and gave the lady my ticket. I waited anxiously as she slowly served my meal like she was forced to work that morning. She was really slow in serving and I was getting really upset but I was too weak to complain. I had to save my last energy for carrying the plate to my seat. She finally finished serving and I took my plate to a table at the other end of the hall. I sat facing the door.

Midway into my meal the door opened and I looked up to see who was walking in. Not that I really cared though, it was more of a reflex, so I almost instantly brought my head back down to continue my meal. It took some nanoseconds for the image to register in my head. Like a spring that was loaded and released my neck threw my head back up. My hand stopped in mid-air on the way to my mouth and my lower jaw dropped so hard that it almost detached from my face.
Yes, it was Izi that walked in, but it seemed like I was laying eyes on her for the first time.
My brain was finally properly processing information and I discovered it had grossly underestimated Izi's beauty earlier. She looked way prettier.
It took much work to finally get my lower jaw in place as I continued with my meal, still watching Izi's movements. She ordered her food and got her meal served. As she looked around for the best place to seat her eyes met with mine, she smiled and started walking towards my table.

"Why do I keep running into you today", she said as she settled in the chair directly opposite mine.

"Well, today must be my lucky day", I replied.

We kept on talking while I waited for her to finish her meal. It was a nice conversation. She had all the witty answers and smiled at almost everything I said. While we were talking, almost every guy in the restaurant was looking in our direction and it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable........uncomfortable?....hell no!....I felt like I was on top of the world.
When she was done with her meal we talked for a few more minutes before walking out of the restaurant together.

Wow...thumbs up man. You are fncking good. p.s dts my first curseword on NL just cudnt find a beta word.

SirElaw: Wow...thumbs up man. You are fncking good. p.s dts my first curseword on NL just cudnt find a beta word.

ROTFL....now that's a funny one. Thanks again bro

Hmmmm... Its quite funny that this topic has been on my followed topics list for quite a while and for the first time ever, I opened it and I regret not opening earlier. Nice job nudges, not like am complaining but in my opinion you shouldn't have updates a second time, the first had this 'touch' and although the second update was cool too, it somehow made the first update less effective and cleared our curiosity which isn't realy a good thing on the part of the writter.
Anyway, don't mind me, am just a bored dude looking for someones thread to blab on . Great JoB, I laughed like a mad man while reading it.

Well, after reading the first post a couple of times I had to agree that it needed a follow-up(I'm glad I did coz it paid off for me in other places).
More posts ought to have followed the second buh I kinda changed my mind.
Your comment and honest opinion is really appreciated, thanks man.

Nuges11: Well, after reading the first post a couple of times I had to agree that it needed a follow-up(I'm glad I did coz it paid off for me in other places).
More posts ought to have followed the second buh I kinda changed my mind.
Your comment and honest opinion is really appreciated, thanks man.

I didn't come back because you said you didn't wanna carry on.

Lemme go and read

HumbledbYGrace: I didn't come back because you said you didn't wanna carry on.

Lemme go and read

Thanks ma'am.......what do you think of the second post?

Nuges11:

Thanks ma'am.......what do you think of the second post?

Great piece too I loved it, you flow with words and makes writing look easy wow.

But I would like to challenge you....after the competition though. Holla if your game

Thanks a bunch. What? Challenge who...me? Ma'am you just made me jump right out of my skin

Nuges11: Thanks a bunch. What? Challenge who...me? Ma'am you just made me jump right out of my skin

how does it feel?

HumbledbYGrace: how does it feel?

Lol
Anyways, I've never shied away from any challenge and I don't plan to start with yours. So HBG, I'm game (although my legs are still shaking).

is the story ended?, so, I can unfollow...

roaringlamb01: is the story ended?, so, I can unfollow...

Yessir........thanks for following