Mum: Have some Jollof Rice. Me: No thank you, I'm on some carb free muscle building diet Mum: WHAT! Why would you want to build muscles? Me: I knew you'd react like that. Last time I had a six pack you told me I looked like a man. Mum: You didn't look like a man. You looked like a horse Me: Why would muscles make me look like a horse?!! Mum: Well isn't that what those muscle women use to bulk up? Horse Injections.....
Mum: I'm coming to NY soon. Hope you don't have that poor brand of rice anymore? Me: Which one? Mum: The one with the lady on it...wearing a scarf...Aunty something...she looks togolese? Me: Um...Aunt Jemima? Mum: Yes! That's the one Me: ....She's definitely not Togolese...and I don't think she makes rice.
All controversy aside, I'm not sure why my mother associates pancakes with rice....or togolese women with scarves.
".....Cause we'll be up all night until the early light!"
A recent conversation with my mum, brought that Janet Jackson song to mind.
Mum: Your Aunty --- called me to say she's bringing ten people with her to the trad ceremony. Me: TEN? Mum: Yes, she says she doesn't "roll to parties alone".
Now I'm stuck picturing an aunt rolling deep like a rapper.
Planning a wedding is one thing, planning it with your father, is in a completely different sailor senshi megaverse.
I've often thought about the courage that oyinbo people have , doing things like "eloping" to Vegas to get married, or having small, intimate weddings, where they don't even invite their parents. Its courageous all right, and in my case, would be downright suicidal, or possibly homicidal, since I wouldn't be killing myself technically, but simply making it easy for my parents to kill me.
The thought of having a wedding smaller than 500+ people alone had my father threatening to 'disown' me. Actually, first he mocked me, then when he realized I was serious, he threatened to disown me.
I don't know what possessed me to mention it to him. I must have felt somewhat emboldened by a recent episode I'd watched of "Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?", I thought to myself, I WILL stand up to my parents. I will have the destination wedding of my dreams. I WILL walk down a sandy beach in flip flops, to the sound of calypso drums and marry the way I want to marry....in front of 3 guests, and my cat.
I'd forgotten that "boldness" and "naija father" mix like oil and vinegar. After staring at me in what could be nothing less than pure disdain, at my suggestion that I have my wedding in the UAE, my father asked "Why not just run off to Sugar Mountain and get married?"
Sugar Mountain apparently is a reference to one of his favorite country music songs...and I am yet to understand why this man, living in a hot country like Nigeria, devoid of loyal dogs, pick up trucks and cowboy boots, is such a huge fan of country music.
Then when I suggested that both he and my mother walk me down the aisle, he couldn't even speak. Just stared at me again. This time, not with disdain, but with eyes that cried "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO DESTROY MY ENTIRE WORLD AS I KNOW IT?"
And with that, I learned that some battles, should not even be proposed, talkless of fought.
