The Woman in the Mirror 8 So I hate two faced, yellow bellied idiotic people who expect you to live a lie just so you can be accepted, and this week was no different as I thought Id finally gotten the hang of ignoring such people without letting them know that their behaviour affected me in any way. My neighbour is married with 2 young, unruly children at age 5 and 3; she is in her 40s but looks older than her age because of an obvious experiment gone bad with skin lighteners. When I first moved in I was friendly and introduced myself as Dionne to which she answered Call me Mrs Obi (looking pointedly at my ringless fingers). Aha! One of those ones I thought to myself but remained quiet with the practiced smile on my face. She then took to walking up to me to speak with me until she met my daughter and finally found the appropriate label for me...Mama Arabella! I was doing great at ignoring her type, the ones that need the MRS or Motherhood tag in order to have an identity and so anything short of that doesnt work. Anyway, we were now both mothers so we could finally relate. Her hubby is a bit of a boy; more savvy, charming and very polite. Most mornings on my way back from my 30 minute walk, he hails me and we sometimes share 3 minutes of how your side?. Other times while cleaning my apartment at the weekend, if hes outside washing his cars we might gist some more, until.... Suddenly her hostility emerges...haughty looks replace the practiced non - expression, a thin angry line replaces full lips, counter instructions to the shared maiguard replaces polite consideration...still I gentle *as they say on the street. Then she decided to bring the fight home in feminine Igbo fashion forgetting that Im a 43 year old Niger Delta woman who was raised in downtown Iwaya and chops knuckle with Isale Eko boys who call me Iya niyen. As I sat in my front room listening to her pass a derogatory comment about me to the maiguard while attempting to guilt him into treating her with the same courtesy he treats me (mind you, hes one of my Northern sons so we de chop, de gist together)....anger welled up on my inside and I wanted to take her blue/green patchwork face and slap it into the next millennium! One look into the mirror and My Woman adjusted my thinking from fisticuffs to femme fatale. She smiled and said to me Teach her a lesson, but work with her weaknesses...that way shed never forget hmmmm!. So I throw on my housecoat over my nightdress, step outside as her bobo emerges and stand gisting with him for about 15 minutes, laughing loudly at his jokes about the climbing senators in Abuja. Her chagrin was so palpable as she walked past mumbling a greeting which neither of us answered till she said I de greet oh and received a nonchalant wave of hand. When she was sufficiently chastised, I tottered off back into my apartment and fell into a fit of happy giggles thinking Lets see you refer to me in derogatory terms again, silly woman!. Suffice to say, I needed to repent and ask God to forgive my vengeance lapse but walai! I loved the look on her face when she realised that this divorced Lagos woman (you know that translates to loose cannon in the minds of her type) may not be one to mess with oh! Thanks to my Woman in the Mirror for the lesson in the use of honey with a twist of vinegar for taste. Happy Weekend Folks!
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 06:36:02 +0000
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