MY BRAND OF CRAZY

Is this an irony? I don't know. Moment of madness. Maybe.

So what happened? The bus I took to Ikeja decided to take a detour which will make it bypass about 5 stops. Passengers for the next stop after point of detour began to protest, the usual Lagos way. They were very vocal in the face of exorbitant transport fare. A particular set of passengers, 2 women one of them pregnant stated they were ready for war if the bus boy (that's the posh way of naming a conductor) refuses to foot the bill for onward movement. To move the story faster, a scuffle occurred. The women wanted more refund than he gave. They tried to grab him. One of them grab him and tore his cloth in the process. He reacted with pushing and punching. All these was happening at a spot beside a waterway (what we call gutter). The bus boy – that’s the one we call conductor- got pushed into the gutter. Alarm! That infuriated me. It irked me.

By the time the bus zoomed off I see the 2 women weren't pleased at the resolution of the matter. I wasn't too. So I voiced my opinion. I told the conductor he was unfair. He should have taken them to the agreed point. He literally spat in my face and started to curse. That got me very mad.

Some idiot cursing me in this end of the year season! That period was in late December 2019. He wished me dead before the year ended! What was my business he said. To be honest, he looked decent and acted quite saner in comparison to his colleagues.

His flowery characteristics notwithstanding, I spat fire back. I cursed back. I emphasized it. I asked if he would have acted same if they were men. I was especially angry because he wanted to intimidate me because I was a girl who looked as young as he. He wasn't letting up even in spite of other passengers pacifying us both. The other passengers surprised me by attacking me when he was the bully. I wasn't going to let him have the last word because I considered words too heavy and intimidating. He threatened to rip off my clothes as I disembark at my stop. That infuriated me further. Another lady stated that I had something boosting my confidence, if not I would have kept quiet because I couldn't handle him. I looked her in the face to confirm she actually said that.

Now the point in my story is, why do we collectively condone cheating, disservice and gloss over people taking shortcuts? Why do we as a people allow bullying?

As I alight the bus, I was prepared for him to act up but he didn't. Not that I had any powers to counter him, especially not physically but I was mentally doing a recollection of defense tactics for females which I had read somewhere. I had planned to get him at his weak point to lay the matter to rest. And I also knew I was going to be writing. I felt too strongly about the situation.