Now to the main part of my road rage, . . .
In all the wisdom of my sense, I asked my sister’s driver to turn around and head back home to her or he’ll be stuck in what looked like forever traffic, and he’ll get to his home at ungodly o’clock! I got off and took an okada for the third time in one day, which must be a record.
We negotiated for N150 which would probably have been N50 on a normal day. And I warned him to be careful. Like other bike drivers (not riders, because they are driving others), he too had changed the sound of his horn to that of a truck or large bus. With so many of them trumpeting their presence and weaving their passengers through whatever gaps they found between cars or between cars and the concrete road dividers, it was like water finding the path of least resistance. There was a cacophony of loud noise that filled the air that I had to tell myself that my hearing won’t be negatively affected by such level of noise! Amen!
Enter road rage.
My okada driver was squeezing through the gaps between cars and the road dividers when an air-conditioned car started to pull in to block that gap. Well, since I had no plans to spend as long as he’d have had to spend in that chaotic traffic, I smacked the boot of his car with my left hand to alert him that other commuters were also there using the public roads. Especially as he’d managed to be deaf to the blasts of the okadas‘ horns.
Can I just say though that car ownership is a Vitamin S in Lagos Nigeria. Where ‘S’ stands for Sanity because you can minimise the amount of dust, noise, heat and other forms of pollution other mere mortals are exposed to. Anyway, I digress. Back to the story.
The guy in the passenger seat of said car, looked at me angrily and tapped his temple like he had a migraine to let me know that he thinks something was wrong with yours truly. Well, I mouthed back to him that nothing was wrong with me. His mate pulled back out to give way to us okada users but then emerged from his car like a bragging peacock to warn me not to touch his car again.
Well, I told him in the best way I could that he didn’t have to be mean because he had a car. He didn’t respond and retracted his head back into the safety of the shell of his car.
I think he might have been a bit taken aback by yours truly’s eloquent, slightly British accented response that he had no comeback.
As soon as we cleared his car, I looked back at him with my teacher face suspecting that he was still looking in my direction with the flood lights he had for headlamps. I couldn’t see him but if he saw my face, he’d have seen my utter disapproval at his road greed! Lol . . . Like he cared . . .
Anyway, on our merry way we went soon to discover the source of the heavy congestion was a trailer sprawled across the breadth of the road.
Trailers are a definite nightmare in Lagos especially if you leave anywhere leading towards the ports.
Anyway, I was happy I was able to talk back to him without resorting to using foul language! Thank you Jesus!!
The end!
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