I was standing at the bus stop this morning
waiting for a danfo bus to Obalende. I was looking off into the distance and
practising reading conductors’ lips when I got lucky. This one was
calling Obalende. I was standing off to one side at the bus stop, away from
most of the crowd, and so I had a small advantage. I hopped off the sidewalk
and went to meet the bus before it stopped. The bus looked full, so I knew there
was just one seat left.
But then I noticed that this last remaining seat
was one of those pull-out ones, right beside the door of the bus. And this seat
looked shaky. I've seen people fall off seats just like this one in moving
danfos, so you can understand my hesitation.
‘You no dey enter?’ the conductor growled.
I shook my head. ‘This your seat ehn…’
‘The seat dey good, enter.’
I glanced at the people at the bus stop eyeing
me, ready to pounce on the seat I was considering rejecting. Then I remembered
how long I had to stand most days before finding a bus to Obalende. I took a
breath and got into the bus. I perched on the seat, careful not to put my full
weight on it. The conductor climbed on, covering the doorway with his body, his
feet on the ledge as he held on to the roof of the bus, and the bus eased into
the road. My hope at that point was that one of the
passengers would shout ‘o wa’ and get off at a bus stop soon. As it turned out,
this did not happen for a while. Moments later the traffic eased and we were
speeding down the express road, and this was where my troubles really began.
You see, I was wearing a wig. And though I’d
been wearing wigs for some time and had grown used to them, every wig wearer
knows the anxiety that lurks at the back of your mind when you imagine the various
ways that your ‘hair’ can be separated from your head without warning. Like, you
could be coming down from a danfo and a lock of hair could get snagged on the
door or on some random shard of metal protruding from the roof, and then your
head will be exposed. You could be riding on an okada with a helmet on, and then
when you alight and take off the helmet to return it your wig comes off along with said
helmet and your ‘true self’ is revealed. You could be riding in a danfo with
open doors, sitting on that outermost seat, like I was, the wind whipping your
face and your ear rings, one hand struggling to hold on to your bags on your
thighs and the other holding on to the seat in front of you so you don’t fall
off when the bus takes the next curve in the road, and then the wind blows your
wig right off your head and into the face of the person behind you. Or worse,
the wind blows your wig out the bus and onto the windshield of a poor driver
who did nothing at all to deserve any of this.
With every second that the wind buffeted my face
and head I felt a growing certainty that it would take my wig. And so I found
myself presented with a choice.
With one hand I was holding on to my bags, which
were resting on my thighs and held my laptop and wallet and random valuables.
It was a no-brainer; I needed all this stuff so I couldn't let go. With my other hand, I was holding
on to the seat in front of me, to reduce my chances of falling off the bus
every time we reached a roundabout or a bend in the road. But, and here was my
dilemma, I had the option of letting go of the seat and using this other hand
to hold on to my wig.
My people, after careful consideration I chose
to let go of the seat that was probably saving my life and hold my hair in
place.
But wait, before you say I’m vain. Believe me, I
promise and cross my heart sef, I chose this option only because of the poor
person sitting behind me who did not wake up this morning expecting to get a
faceful of fake hair, and for the sake of the even poorer driver behind us who
might be so shocked by the unexpected wig in his windscreen he might swerve off
the road and die.