He parked on the side of the road by “24 hours” and stretched across to the passenger side of the car to grab his shoes, unhooked his jacket from the hanger at the back, flung it over the arm with the shoes and reached out for his laptop bag – all this with his right hand. Months of practice, made what might otherwise have been a complex operation feel effortless, at least for the most part. His left hand had to be kept free to deal with the car keys, the stereo and the phone. As he stretched across the back seat to reach the laptop bag, straining his arm in the process, he caught a glimpse of the smiling security guard stumbling towards the car. “Right on schedule” he thought gladly. He had just started to let a smile form on his face when he noticed the other person – the PM or Parking Meter, just ahead of the smiling security guard. Sigh, he thought and started to scan through dashboard areas of the car for cash.
The PM was the OIC for parking on the side of 24 hours, and on any given weekday he would allocate the six spaces available based on his own personal algorithm comprised of his, mood, driver gender, and his personal recollection of when last he had received a tip from the relevant driver. It really didn’t matter if you had tipped him just the previous day, what was critical was if he remembered. He was pretty sure he’d tipped the PM on Friday but from experience he knew that the guy’s memory tended to be particularly bad after the weekends. There didn’t seem to be any change in the car. Perhaps in his back pocket but with the jacket and laptop bag already successfully loaded on the one hand he would have to pass them on to even be able to check. By then it would be too late to enlist the help of the smiling security guard. Usually, the guard could act as a counter for bad memory at least once a week but only if you didn’t start fiddling with your pockets in the presence of the PM. Fiddling was deemed an admission of guilt and once the PM saw you fiddling there was no longer any hope of escaping the tip.
Finally, just before they reached him, he spotted some change in the cup holder – N200, just enough to secure parking for the day. He had missed it before because the Naira note was so old and dirty that it blended almost seamlessly with the black inner walls of the cup holder, like a used piece of tissue that had been crumpled up and forgotten for months. It was so soft that one could almost conclude that it had started to decay. There was no trace to suggest that once upon a time this money may have been shinny and crisp. As he picked up the money with the tips of his fingers, careful not to let it touch the inside of his palm, he couldn’t help feeling some sympathy – not for the PM who wouldn’t really care once he’d ascertained that it was indeed a N200 note but for the note itself. It was destined to be rejected by many sepe and paraga sellers until it found its way to the hands of a petrol station attendant, like one of those jambites who just can’t seem to understand that freshmen don’t date girls in University.
As raggedy as it was, finding the N200 note still lifted his spirits a little. It really was against the tide for a Monday morning and he could certainly use the boost. Usually Monday’s tended to be mostly a powerful reminder of the correctness of Murphy’s Law – everything that could go wrong normally did. One Monday he’d woken up two hours early, rushed to the office to continue some work which he’d been struggle to finish all night and then found that there was no power at the office plus his laptop just happened to be at less than 10% battery life, and when he dashed back home to try and get some juice into the laptop he’d forgotten his keys at the office. Basically, in spite of waking up a few hours early after limited sleep he still somehow managed to lose the entire morning.
Today was already proving to be one of those Mondays. First, it had been raining when his alarm went off at 6am. That meant that even though he got up early anyway, he still couldn’t go jogging. The whining noise of the alarm had roused him from the random dream he was having. Nothing fancy, one of those dreams where the events are so fanciful you know you’re definitely dreaming but you let your mind be deceived anyway because you like the alternate reality. He was actually receiving praise for his work on some transaction in the office. Once upon a time that would have been normal but in the last three years, ever since the snitching of 2008, when the Fat, Shapeless Girl had labeled him as a motivation sapping, fire-breathing demon of the workplace, addicted to the misery and failure of others, office praise had dried up. The snitching of 2008 had washed away all his benefit of doubt. Now every joke, every remark, every comment was dismantled and reverse engineered in search of the sarcasm and cynicism. But in the dream Alex Ferguson was actually thanking him for his efforts and praising him and even though it seemed to be happening at an office meeting, no one was jeering. The noise of the alarm interrupted Fergie mid-sentence, initially he thought he was experiencing a fire alarm at the office but then his brain started to flash images of his bedroom and he remembered it was just a dream. Once the office meeting setting had fully faded from his mind and he was back in his bedroom, he pulled himself out of bed, with the sleep still in control of parts of his body. He staggered to the worktable to kill the alarm, cursing himself for being practical enough to place the alarm far enough away from the bed to guarantee its effectiveness. With the alarm dead he started to hear the rain. It wasn’t heavy but it was continuous, enough to mean that he would surely be drenched if he dared to exercise. Remembering that his flat mate was out of town and he had the house to himself he actually screamed, a terrible, frustrating scream from deep in his belly, expressing not just the frustration of breaking his exercise schedule for the umpteenth time, but of having to cut a pleasant dream short and for having to go back to work.
Next there was more traffic than usual (even for a Monday) at the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge and the time saved leaving home early had been completely wiped out anyway. It was now officially past the grace period and he was late for work. Worse, there were a couple of assignments he hadn’t quite gotten to over the weekend but he could already hear the wildish sound of his iphone suggesting that emails with work were already pouring in. At Falomo, one of his clients had called – Mrs. RQ (Random Questions). She always had the habit of calling at odd times with random questions that she believed related to life threatening decisions but which always turned out to be nothing. Initially he didn’t want to answer the call but then he remembered the dressing down from last week.
Last week, he and his boss had gone to some routine discussion meeting which they expected would last about two hours maximum but which turned out to be a page-turn negotiation of some agreement. It was the worst day for both of them to be stuck at a meeting. Not a Monday but one of those annoying days when several clients just realized the world was about to end so their transactions had to close immediately. Somehow and actually, by standards he considered heroic, they had managed to coordinate two separate closings while not just participating in, but, directing the page-turn negotiations. Naturally, to manage that level of multitasking, several client calls went unanswered and unreturned for the duration of the page-turn. Not to mention that at several points, someone would have to step out to deal with an emergency. What followed at the office, the next day was not a patting on the back but a hair dryer to rival any Alex Ferguson might have ever delivered in a dressing room if Man U were down 0 – 3 at half time at Old Trafford. The Partners were livid – the audacity to dare attend to any work emergency during a meeting.
Remembering the episode again, he decided to answer the phone. Mrs. RQ didn’t disappoint. She had one of her usual questions, something to do with annual returns from a few years ago. He dispensed with it easily enough but then just as he hung up the phone, he noticed the LASTMA official at the roundabout facing him directly. Yes, Murphy’s Law was in full force. It cost him N5,000.
Finally though, in spite of the lousy alarm, and the rain and the missed exercise and the ridiculous traffic and the corrupt LATSMA official, he was at work, and he had found a N200 note just when he needed it. Perhaps Murphy’s Law was done for the day?
It’s a Thursday and the time is 8.45pm in the evening. The place is slowly emptying of people. The traffic outside is finally beginning to quiet down as the stream of cars starts to thin out. Soon, all that will be left is the sounds of the night – the termites, buzzing around the fluorescent light outside, pairing up for their destined fatal mating; the fire alarm, beeping every few minutes, finally audible since all of the noise of the day crawlers is gone; the smaller generator, blaring its weird stutter like its about to give up the ghost; and of course, the fuji music from 100hours, somehow still distinctly audible above the noise of the generator.
He’s only just taken off his shoes, flown his shirt and popped his collar. “Time for serious work” he murmurs to himself as he moves his laptop to Boss Lady’s table. He’s already identified all of the books he’ll need. Volume 5 of Sasegbon’s Laws of Nigeria, the volume with the section on Contracts, Chitty on Contracts, not much else. So much of the stuff is stored on his laptop these days, there’ll come a time when he won’t even need reference books. As the thought crosses his mind, he smiles to himself. It’s ridiculous how small random things like that excite him but he’s oblivious to just how pathetic he might seem to an onlooker.
He slides across the corridor to glance at the clock in the reception. He always claims that the shoes go off so his feet can breathe a little but he knows its really so he can slide around. The time is now 8.55pm. Setting up on Boss Lady’s table had taken a few minutes but there’s still just enough time to dash across to the pharmacy and grab a bottle of 5 hours Energy. He’s in and out of the pharmacy in an instant. They’re already used to his routine now and normally have his order ready for him at the counter. Back in the office, he settles into Boss Lady’s chair and starts to read the printed version of the questions.
Writing opinions really are the best part of the job, the purest form of the art. With opinions, one gets the opportunity to apply all of the skills together, even the IRAC principles from school. In dissecting a problem to identify the actual legal questions, talent is nearly just as important as experience. And as if all of that isn’t reason enough, writing opinions actually means solving people’s real life problems. He always gets such a rush from the process, especially when he’s writing it himself not one of those instances where he really just being a manager/editor. If he ever leaves the job, opinions will probably be the part he misses the most.
“If he ever leaves the job” for some reason, his mind lingers on this idea a little. Even as he begins to realize he’s drifted from reviewing the questions to fantasizing about writing opinions. He checks his watch – still just 9.15pm. He probably has a few minutes to kill pondering the idea of leaving before he has to settle down to work. He’d never really even considered it until this year. The issue wasn’t really the late nights – he actually quite enjoyed them. It was more the days. He still couldn’t pin point what the issue was but lately days had started to inspire feelings of a hen-pecked husband – not that he really knew for sure how that felt. Days just always seemed to be full of drama. Something would be late or he would be in too much of a hurry and would miss something or he would have to be in three places at once. Sometimes it was like during the day he only had half a brain or a normal person’s brain. The nights were a completely different matter though. Like he was Popeye and the combination of nights and energy drinks were his spinach. Once all the drama quieted down everything was suddenly like the old days again. At night he was a superstar, just like in the beginning.
Lately he had started to romanticize the beginning. The beginning was like a deceased spouse or an ended relationship – his brain had shut out all of the bad patches. All he could remember of the Beginning was the accolades, the awards, the constant stream of praise. Banished from his memory were the questions, the suspicions, the second-guessing and all of the insane pressure.
He wondered how long he could continue enduring the days and living for the nights. He didn’t really expect much to change but it was already too late to leave. Sure in the beginning he was a superstar and he had all of the options but then it wasn’t so much just talent but talent and ability at such a young age. Now that he was grown, his talent was no longer such a surprise – it was now a prerequisite and there was basically nothing to distinguish him.
He glanced at the time on his mobile phone – 9.45pm. Enough daydreaming, time to get back to work. He gritted his teeth, started to chew on the cover of a biro and re-read the questions. After underlining about a third of the text on the printed sheets, he started to flip through the reference books. Soon he would be writing and then he would be like the nerds in The Big Bang Theory, completely engrossed in the opinion and oblivious to the world around him to the point that he wouldn’t notice if a hot girl suddenly stopped by and started to hit on him. He really did love writing opinions.
After another 2 hours of making notes from the reference material he was ready to start writing. That’s when he noticed the unread message in his inbox – same subject as the opinion request. He knew what it was even before he clicked but he opened the email anyway.
dokuribidoblog 