Time For The Crime

I jumped off my toilet seat. Oh shit! Oh shit! I had fallen asleep doing a 2nd round of “NO 2”. I shut my eyes tight as I pulled back my semi-transparent pink window strip. And opened them to see the dreaded bright glow of the sun signifying daylight! Full daylight. 6.30-ish! Oh, even bigger shit! I dashed across the bed and grabbed my Samsung dual. SIX THIRTY-SIX! SHIT with capital block letters! Late, late, late. Who says a girl can’t do a bath and a brush in 4 mins? I could feel the grim determination deep within my chest. 6.45 tops I’d be outta here!

Brushing off water with my mini towel (I hate small towels, they take time which I didn’t have and they got wet before you got dry which meant a double rub-off which meant extra time which I didn’t have enough of right then. Mother Darling had thrown away my previous bigger one, “these things cost N500 ONLY, you know”). I stared at myself in the mirror. Phew! My nicely tonged hair had gone all spiky on me. All I needed was gel at the sides and my Mohawk was ready for the cameras. Who said short hair wasn’t easy? Who said short hair wasn’t cheap? Name of Stylist: Too much Sleep. (note to self: apart from the fact that easy+cheap+sleep = Something Else, what’s wrong with my last three sentences?)

I picked up my Samsung dual again. 6.48! I screamed. Painfully. In full time agony! I hadn’t even worn my bra. What to wear? What to wear? Oh big shit! I hate time! I hate clocks! And above all I hate my job for waking me up at this ungodly hour (which on any normal day is the ungodly 5.15 am – 5.00 too early, 5.30 too late. Because exercise took 30mins and for some reason that betrays a hidden love for the F-word, I could never just be done with the clean-up-and-dress-up process in 15mins. Real bitch, considering I wasn’t holding any celebrity status or any other status quo that demanded such pause for cause-and-effect routines. Not yet anyways.)
Something red and something blue. A red dress top shirt thing and blue jeans. My new (finally!) ankle gladiatiors (cost a fortune, were a lil’ too tight but damn! they looked good. Plus, they were a much needed replacement for my white Aldos which were fast becoming a tattoo on my feet). Picked up my bag, stuffed my phones, my bible (gotta have God on the job) and out the door.

Double oh shit! Laptop bag! I doubled back up the stairs 5 at a time (which didn’t work coz I had to pause and pant and that didn’t help. Time. Next time two a time.) Time! I unplugged my laptop and shoved everything – lappy, USB, charger, earplugs( it was death for a day without them), charger again, USB again, extra earplugs (just in case) – in the bag and of course, couldn’t zip the bag. And therefore had to use both hands to hold the unzipped laptop bag which meant sigh! I dropped the bag – the laptop bag – hoisted my handbag across my left shoulder( for some reason, I’ve never been able to successfully hang a bag on my right side), wrapped my Pashmina around my shoulders ( my office officially boasted an A/C that emitted drafts akin to the frosts of St. Petersburg.), and grabbed my lappy bag with both hands(that took an extra 3mins and by mental calculation and the fact that I couldn’t hear Adot snore as loudly as before, it was 6.57). But there was no way I was leaving my laptop behind.( Not even for one silent look of “late again” with steamy eyes that peered at me as I walked past one or two of them ‘rette-puffing Nazis that would reply my cheerful I’m-late-what’s-the-worst-that -could-happen “morning” with an even more cheerful late-as-usual “morning”. After all I’d still pay the dreaded price of bumping into them and suffer from forced How Long Can You Hold Your Breath practice sessions. Tho’ you wouldn’t catch me complaining out loud. I could now do 40 full seconds and strut past in 4-inch heels with head held high and still speak all at the same time. Who said smoking was bad for “fill in the blank space”?

I plunked into the back seat after my “plenty kaya”, breathed in deeply and gasped at the car clock that was NEVER wrong. Even if it was, the voice of that Annoying News Reader stopped my “Please, please don’t let it be 7 yet!” prayer. SEVEN OH TWO! And choked almost immediately. I needn’t worry about Death at the Exhalation of the Nazis For The Crime of Extreme Lateness To Work. Suleiman’s B.O. (translation? Seriously?) would get me first.

Can I say shit one last time?