Honestly Afronuts, If I “Cash” You Ehn!!!

Afronuts! Afronuts!! Afroooooonuts-ehhhhhh!!! How many times did I call you? Na wetin? Where you dey when they were nominating bloggers for the NBAs, instead na this “Scrap” award you come dash me abi? If I cash you, I will flog you eh soteeeeey… OK, it’s just that mini-‘Nuts is on the way and it wouldn’t be nice for him/her to see koboko marks on Daddy’s bum-bum. So for AfroBaby’s sake, you are forgiven.

After being tagged the first time, if you see the way I’ve been dodging the thing eh, you’d think tag was a LASTMA official! Now Afronuts has to go and smoke me out again… Not only do I get to tell 10 Honest Things about myself, but by the time I’m through I’d have made 7 brand new enemies on top. And the worst is that just like I’ve been doing in recent times, this is not a real Phoneparazzi post sef…

Even though I’ve told you guys quite a lot about me in this post here, I still had to come with 10 Honest things all over again. Anyway, let me quit complaining and do the meme. The quicker the pain, the better…

Quick-quick! Here are the quirky rules as copied from Buttercup (I prefer her version):

The (funny) rules:
1. You must brag about it.
2. You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger.
3. You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends (LOL).
4. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with the Honest Weblog Award. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.
5. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!

I was given the Honest Scrap Award by the ‘nutty Afronuts. This is me bragging… AT LEAST I GOT ME AN AWARD! *Brag! Brag!! Brag!!!*
13 Honest Things About Me:
1. I love Love. Said like the hardcore romantic that I am. With the way I diss love and marriage nowadays, you’d never think of it to hear me but deep inside I am mad romantic, a sucker for love even. Though I haven’t shown it in a long while, I do crazy things for love… Gosh! Thinking of some things I did in the past still makes my ass blush. And no, I’m so not telling…

2. I can’t dance. Amongst the list of a million and one things I can’t do. Never been to a club all my long life because when I do get to dance in one, I’ll be sure to be charged with murder when the other dancers die laughing. I can count the number of parties I’ve attended on one hand with 2 fingers amputated and I ended up as DJ so as to escape the dancing bit. Whenever I’m on my own I just love to crank up the music and tear away into my funny dances. God save me the day someone catches me on camera!

3. I hate the fact that I’ve been an underachiever most of my life. Can’t swim, can’t ride a bike or do a whole lot of things that normal kids did too. It’s all due to my no-good, over-sheltered childhood. The worst thing is now I’m getting rather old to do most things but I swear I’m going to try doing them even if I’m 70. OK, time to go and get those dreadlocks!

4. Sometimes I’m a touchy-feely person, most times I’m not. I love cuddling like MAD! In fact, cuddling a voluptuous female has been proven to be the only cure for (my) insomnia. I wish someone could bottle a cuddle, it’d be the world’s best-selling drug. That said, I detest it when unfamiliar people go out of their way to brush against me, especially when there’s enough space in between. I like my elbow room so no bashing my knees with yours or creeping up to zap me from behind, thank you.

5. I intend being celibate until marriage. Even if so many people don’t believe me almost 30 years on. Had a girlfriend years ago and we spent nights together, hence the major source of disbelief. Funny thing is a couple of ladies have scorned me once I mention celibacy, like they think my machinery’s wonky or something. Another major problem: how does one really define celibacy? Thing is, when it comes to issues in the nude between men and women trust me, I know everything (well, almost everything) and I have even studied everything academically sef and tried my hand at a few. But pray, does spending years sitting in a barbershop holding clippers while reading hairstyle magazines make you a great barber? I think not…

6. I think I’ll suck at sex. And no, it’s not what you’re thinking… Apropos of 5 above, I believe several things: one, sex is over-rated. Two, I don’t know how I know sex is over-rated seeing as I’ve got no proof. Three, I believe I’d be so bad at it, I’m too scared to find out. And four, I think that will be up to my wife to discover. Poor brave woman…

7. I’m semi-athletic (?). Always came last in school sports so I kept perfecting means of disappearing during school Inter-house Sports periods. Suddenly, one day like that I just chose to run a mini-marathon (OK, I lie, it was a micro-mini marathon). Shrimp like me, I must have been quite a sight puffing around that track until - miracles of miracles - I came 4th! I was so stunned, I promptly collapsed after the finish line rather than face my cheering Sports housemates and the House Master’s beaming face. News spread round school like wildfire how the shrimp had beat his father’s mates to emerge among the Top 10!
The story doesn’t end there oh… At the finals, I managed to pull another disappearing act while my name was been hollered on the loudspeakers till a classmate found me out and dragged me back to the field. I sucked so bad at the race that I eventually dropped out, proof that lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. Ever since then, I have tried my hand at pseudo-serious shotokan karate, volleyball and basketball with mixed results…

8. I’m confused about raising kids. Which is rather odd seeing as I’ve raised my little niece mostly on my own for over 10 years! It was rather frightening seeing her grow from that toddler beauty I used to carry around everywhere to becoming the talkative, sweet yet rebellious teenager she has now turned into. Her mom can handle that one now. I love kids no doubt but it’s the metamorphosis that scares me, considering especially how wicked the world is turning into. Rather than raise a kid to be bad, I’d prefer to remain without them.

9. Never been afraid of the dark. Ok, I lifted that one from Buttercup but it’s so true, probably because I never believed in fearing things I can’t visualize (can’t see in the dark anyway - I’m night blind). It’s odd sometimes but I go outside late at night and take a little walk or just sit down to think and “watch” over good people while a few bad people do their thing. It gives me a kind of thrill listening to the creepy sounds night animals make, people snoring out of their open windows and the occasional gunshot. Almost like I’m watching over the world like a parent watches a sleeping child. Funny thing is, Mama and Grandma used to try so hard to make me scared of going outside in the dark…

10. I don’t like my father. No, I don’t hate him, just that I don’t like him much. Not only did he walk out on us when we needed him but he did it the hard way: taking everything - our identities, credentials and documents, leaving behind nothing, destroying even our name and credibility with scandalous stories… Anyway, I forgave him ages ago though we haven’t seen for yearssssss and I like it that way. I hold no animosity towards him (honest) but I’d rather be left alone. Maybe when I eventually make it, who knows…

11. I’m way too emotional, I’m way too cold… Talk of being all mixed-up, I don’t know why in some very tense, strenuous or emotional situations I just turn ice-cold and yet watching some movies gets me bawling like a baby. Call it unmanly if you will but remember that scene in The Champ where he dies after winning the fight? It was so heart-rending I cried each time I watched that movie. Even that scene towards the end of Hancock where Charlize Theron gets stronger with each step Hancock takes away from her really got me wiping tears. Funny thing is no-one who watched that movie with me understood the significance of Hancock’s sacrifice.

12. I used to like embellishing gist eh! But I’ve stopped now. Back then I never seemed to have the latest gossip so anytime I got the chance to drop hot gist, I would add all the salt and pepper and curry to the gist soteeeeey! I mean, what’s the need of recounting a car accident for example without exaggerating how the car flipped 10 times before bursting into flames? God forgive me sha, but I’ve even added my own jara to movies I’ve watched and stories I’ve read just to make them “sweeter” twisting the plot as I go along till sometimes I’ve created brand-new sequels out of boring movies. Even till now, I sometimes catch myself remixing hit songs in my head. What can I say?

13. I’m so sure I’m going to make it! While this isn’t really an “honest” thing about me, I am so sure it is going to happen anytime soon. You guys watch out. I know I’ve got the POTENTIAL and God didn’t give it all to me for nothing. It’s left to me to make it ACTUAL so all you players, quit frontin’. (That’s me feeling like a rapper).
When I think of all the things I am unable to do right now, all the people who have snubbed me because I’m not high class or fly, all the stuff I am unable to buy, all these things negative as they may be are the motivation to keep me pushing on till I make it. Just like Kanye, I’ve got an ego complex. I can’t resist the chance to look all those nay-sayers in the eye and say “I told you so”.
And by God, I am going to do it.

OK, e don do! Honesty can be such a drag. I hereby (with utmost pleasure) pass this discomfort to 7 bloggers whose blogs I’ve re-discovered recently and whom I have found to be worthy in character and learning - sorry, content and design. I hand this award to: Cerberus, Dante, Tosyn Bucknor, Tobenna, Olowo, Wellsbaba and L-VII.
If you’ve already done this before, you’re highly exempted.

PS: Trust me; one of these days when I’ve got nothing better to do on Blogville, I’m going to trace this meme all the way back from Afronuts through Parakeet until I discover who first started this meme-ing of a thing. Then I’m going to kick that person’s e-arse vewy, vewy hard and shake their hand afterwards. After all, whoever you are, you’ve just given me a chance to post.

Doing this meme was kinda cool though… Or in the wise words of a certain Danny Bagucci, very therapeutic! I’m out…

Public Service Announcement: Broke!

My people…

Please, abeg, biko, ejo, kai! (or whatever it is Hausa people say) do not vex for me that I have not updated this blog or responded to your comments in quite a while. The reason for this happens to be this “global economic meltdown” or whichever name you want to call it that is hitting me badly.

Just imagine, for the past few months now, my middle name has been “Broke”! Ever since Danny Bagucci put up a post on the choice of names and how it affects our behaviour, I have decided to check the dictionary definition of my newly acquired middle name.

My Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Dictionary (on my PC) defines Broke as “the past tense of break” although I shall use the second shorter more apt description: Penniless. (There is of course, a third definition that refers to a sexual encounter but I can’t find that slang in my Merriam-Webster so let’s not go there.)

Most of my Phoneparazzi shots are usually not planned or composed beforehand since most of them are taken on the spur of the moment anyway, but then there also are the few which are as a result of desperation such as the one shown below:
Yes oh, people! That is a shot of my fridge in my current broke state. To make matters worse, it’s a mini-fridge (or fridgelet, abi no be so LG?) and the thing really isn’t mine sef.

For the un-initiated let me explain the contents of this darling fridge. You see those plenty shiny polythene bags in there? Those things are satchets of good old “pure water”. The rest of the fridge is empty apart from a packet of drinking straws (I don’t think I’ve ever used them to drink anything) and 60 Naira’s worth of Agege bread wrapped in a black poly bag. C’est finis.

On top of the fridge rests a knife, a ring boiler (that has never been used), an empty bottle of jam and a can of Blue Band margarine all about to be pressed into active service in preparing Agege bread breakfast.

Ladies, most men will never admit this oh, but the sight of refrigerators like these is a very convincing reason for us to get married. I even wish I could pretend and say this is a staged picture but by the time I finish typing this, the number of pure water in the fridge would have reduced further sef.

So, my great people, this is just one out of many reasons why I have not been updating. Things are bad. Despite my pride, I will henceforth be accepting donations - money is good, packaged food is even better.

On a final note, here’s our reflection for this weekend: Just how would you define “Broke”?

I have just shown you mine. E remain your own…

PS: A certain female blogger has commissioned me to take pictures of a certain class of people in society. The funny thing is, I used to see them everywhere before but now I've accepted the assignment, they seem to have disappeared! If worst comes to the worst, thanks to my current state, I'll just snap myself and mail it to her...