Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Trade by barter

You know the trade by barter system they had back in the day?? They exchanged carrots for beans, plantain for pepper, Fish for cowries, doughnut for icecream...right ( ._.) Well, I always wished we still had that system while I was growing up...I would have exchanged my brothers for maybe a nice necklace. On second thought, if the Salvation Army was accepting human donations...that would have rocked ( ˘~˘)
Growing up with three elder brothers is not a play play something (⌣̩_⌣) . I was the general punching-bag of the household. You know how restless boys can be. Very restless. And when this restlessness comes upon them like a thief in the morning, they need to vent, and on who better than their little sister. They all had their different personalities, all three of them. Let's call them - Yellalot, Wozealot and Calmalot.
Yellalot did just that, yell a whole lot. You could never win an argument with him. If he decided that on Mondays the sun was purple, then believe me the sun was purple. If I ever picked an argument with him, even if I was making sense, I never won because I was young. "What do you know?" "What have you seen?" "How old are you?" He asked me these questions numerous times. JAMB had nothing on him(-_-). Fortunately or unfortunately for me, I had a pretty big mouth on me. I always had something to say in return. I believed I had seen enough, and I knew enough. Apparently, I didn't know that a slap could wipe my slate of knowledge clean. Once, Yellalot and I were arguing about a book, or something. He called me various names that would have kept the average teenage girl up at night, crying. I replied him, "Yellalot, you're terrible at arguing. Let's argue civilly. Stop calling me names". Just as he was about to throw a slap my way, I would run to my mother who would push me back to slaughter. I guess my mother must have invented the saying, "As you lay your bed, so u must lie on it."
However, Yellalot and I were good friends. He told me stuff and protected me from the bad boys. He taught me his cool school songs. He carried me to the room whenever I fell asleep on the couch. No one messed with Yellalot's sister - except him apparently ( ._.). He always had my back. Still does. He's the only one who's managed to give me a nickname that stuck - "Small". Oh, the pleasure! (-_-)
Wozealot....*sigh* I grew up afraid of Wozealot. Wozealot didn't need a reason to woze you. If you sneezed too hard and didn't apologise, Wozealot was ready to rearrange your physique with a few slaps here, there and everywhere. Once,I remember very clearly, Wozealot called me, "Whiskey, Whiskey come here come here"...Who was I not to answer??( -̩̩̩͡˛ -̩̩̩͡ ) I was Whiskey that day. He took no nonsense. He would lose something and I'll get punished for not telepathically finding the location. Wozealot was my bogeyman.
Then Wozealot went to school in another continent and then we became real close. I realised that more than my other brothers, we had the most in common. We think alike. Once, we were both gisting with mumc and I suggested something. Then he said, "stop reading my mind." *smiles* The change was strange but beautiful. Wozealot sacrificed a lot for me even from miles away. I learned to be friends with him, as opposed to fearing him. When Wozealot came home, we became even closer and we lived happily ever after...until a few days ago. I asked him to repeat something he said. He asked me if I was deaf ƪ(˘.˘)ʃ
Calmalot «---- Please do not be deceived by this alias. Calmalot was very quiet. Mr. Gentle-in-nature. He didn't argue like the rest of us. However, I got most of my punch-bag lessons from him. I never used to be afraid of getting beaten by my teachers because I thought, "What do they want to do that I've not experienced before?" To be honest, my mouth went and overdid itself many times. My parents always took sides with him because they thought, "She must have said something." But is it not every parent's duty to protect their children's lives?? ( ˘~˘) One day, Calmalot was watching TV, and my guardian angel forgot to tell me he was in a bad mood. So I went and changed the channel. I was actually just trying to check if a program had come on and I remember telling him this. Sadly for me, he didn't care. Before I knew it, Calmalot's fist was planted on my eye. (O_O). I screamed and screamed. My neighbours were probably used to my screams by now so they must have turned the volume of their TVs up because nobody came to my rescue. Anyway, I screamed and screamed. "My eye...My eye...MY EYE!!!" Calmalot looked at me and asked, "Are you blind?" I opened the eye to check if it was still working. I saw that it was and I hissed and asked him, "So you're waiting for me to be blind shey??" He jus tuned the TV back to the previous channel, without a care for his sister who wasn't blind after all. ( º̩̩́_º̩̩̀)
My dear Calmalot was a Rantalot soldier. Whether you were messing with me oh, or you were just standing too close for comfort, Calmalot was ready to beat anyone blue-black. Even those bigger than him. Nowadays, if he sees me chiding someone or just telling off someone, before he even knows what happened or if it was me at fault, he has shoved the person into the nearest wall( ._.) One time, he saw one guy trying to chike his sister. I was ignoring the boy and he wasn't really bothering me per say, I mean...toasting no be crime...but Calmalot no gree mehn. He stepped up to the guy.."Wetin you dey find? You lost?..." The poor boy scurried along.
All my brothers are amazing. We're all pretty grown up now. The blows have lessened a great deal. The smiles and hugs have increased. Life is Good and I love my brothers to bits and pieces.
It's a rainy day but life must go on...ƪ(˘.˘)ʃ Oya Chop! Chop!
Yours truly, Rantalot
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN

13 comments:

  1. #coveringface ehm I remember my brother being part of the bully team!

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  2. & what was your name in this fairytale 'smallielot' #OkBye..

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  3. a fine blend of humour n sorrow. i like.
    ur bros' r a tad overprotective, not dat i blame 'em( u being d only gal n all whatnot). my fav part's where ur Ma pushed u back into d "war zone". Nice one!

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  4. Good one Rantalot. Keep ranting but I wouldn't blame ur brothers cos younger sisters can be annoying, I have 1 so I now. This piece shows d beauty of adulthood against d follies of childhood. Gr8 piece, SingAlot

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  5. You should have returned all d blows back cos a saying goes thus "what won't kill you would only make you stronger". You would have been stronger than them all now! :d

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  6. You should have returned all d blows back cos a saying goes thus "what won't kill you would only make you stronger". You would have been stronger than them all now! :d

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  7. LWKMD . . oma se o, hope u re still fine sha, cos na u God say i go marry o :D

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  8. Just when I thought d last post was over-hilarious. I was really hoping u'll talk abt ur brothers soon especially the "are u blind?" story (I still rotflol). Nice work

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  9. iamdpsychosaintMay 31, 2012 4:17 PM

    Woulda said plentyz,but ermmmmm,no tym!!!!! I'm glad there's no "hope" 4 us tho. *d Thot of gettin brushed by ur PLENTY(aka "a lot" ) brovs is wt I call "subduing toh bahd"

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  10. I like. Rant on please.

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