Working in the bank exposes one to a mix of real life, especially when you are customer facing. It also makes you have flashes of one or two events or scenarios of the past. So the bank is almost a place where the past meets the present .
Looking at the intercom in front of me one morning, I suddenly started wondering how the telephone that we used to put one finger inside one small hole and turn suddenly became a number punching machine. Then I had flashes of how you will receive a call from a friend in school and he or she will start exposing your secrets while you are labouring to change the conversation to “shebi I told you I will return your biology textbook tommorrow na, drop the call” because you are aware that your father or guardian has picked the extension and you can hear his heavy breathing.
I remember one of my friends calling one evening. I was expecting the call, so I rushed to pick it, at the same time my guardian picked the extension. My friend’s tiny voice came through. “How are you, what are you doing?”. Aware of the heavy breathing from the extension, I replied “I am reading”. This girl did not code. She just continued “did you see the flower I put inside your book?” and i replied “you mean the biology assignment?”. This girl still did not hear word. She went “NO NO NO, the flower is from my heart. Shey FLAMES said we are lovers, that is why I put it there. Check it na, then say something nice to me”. I was just quiet. I dont think it was the fear of my guardian listening in that made me quiet. Looking back , I think it was her audacity that CHOKE me. The next I heard was “Afe, are you there?.” And my guardian said “He is not there, young girl what is your name and who is your father” the phone went dead immediately. O girl drop call, run comot, leave me for trouble.
The hurdles we even had to jump to be able to use those NITEL phones sef. From looking for ways to steal the key to open the lock, especially as parents globally started locking the phones, to learning how to tap the phone to make calls.
These days, mobile phones now give children the privacy to do good and bad .
Well, that is technology. It has its pros and cons.
TO BE CONTINUED
NaijaNoiseMakers says “This Grandpa sef,….always creating suspense. Drop a line for him in the comment section.”
Barr. Victor Edegbai AKA Grandpa is a father of many nations, positive thinker, and friend of many. I like trouble, because I be lawyer.
