��REMEMBER TO LAUGH �
Anytime I told my wife this segment of the story of my life, she used to laugh to stupor.It happened some twenty nine years ago yet it never looses its comical attributes. We were three close friend living on the same street. My two friends coincidentally were bearing same name Tolu. The first Tolu did something and it worked. What was it?
Knowing quite well that his mother was watching, Tolu started tinkering with these Tiger Batteries, gathering the black powder into a nylon bag. When the mother asked him what he wanted to do with the powder, he calmly told her that any day the mother made him angry by not aquescing to any of his request, he would swallow the powder and commit suicide. The mum was shocked and started panicking begging him to discard the idea. But it worked. Tolu was getting all he wanted from his rich Mum. We saw the changes. Tolu spent more, he enjoyed more. After a lot of hassles, he finally let us in of what he did.
So we decided to copy and hoped it works too on our parents. Tolu's lifestyle was becoming oppressive to us.
When I got home, I made sure my Mum was around and so I started dismantling the battery casings. Of course, she asked what I was doing with the battery powder. I did as my friend said that I want to keep it to commit suicide if my Mum does not listen to me. I never knew how my Mum covered the distance between us. The slap was deadening, the subsequent ones makes my cheeks bounced like skin of a beaten drum. It was sunny afternoon yet it seemed it was dark and it was about to rain. It was the slaps playing tricks with my vision. She dragged me inside like a criminal and gave me a punishment that erased all suicide thought from my head. " Eedi fe di e abi?, Emi lo maa le edi Jade ninu aye e"
When my Dad came in the night, the punishment continued. He banned all my friends visiting or me getting out said I was being influenced. As if those were not enough, Mum invited her younger sister, my Aunt to talk "sense" into me. My Aunt?, her mouth was a razor blade, when she talked to you, you can even commit the suicide self. Like when she said "Anty mi, sheh won o paaro omo fun yin ni ward Sha?" She was asking if the wrong child was not given to my Mum at my birth!
I ended up begging and apologizing and that was when my Mum burst crying. The way my sibblings now looked at me, it was if I was the devil incarnate. I was avoided like a plague. I felt sorry that I made Mum cried, especially when she started stating what she was passing through to put food on the table. I really felt like Judas. But what happened to the second Tolu?
His own case was the worst. Indeed , he too did that same thing. When they asked him and he said he wanted to commit suicide, they didn't even behave as if they heard him. He didn't know his mother had given the elder brother signal to capture him. They grabbed Tolu and lied him down, the mother said he should open his mouth so the powder would be poured in for him. My friend tightened his mouth struggling to get free. Ti o ba ku Alaye a shaye, if you die those alive would go on living. When Tolu finally struggled free, he ran like never before. He could not go home, he came to my house and I also told him my pathetic story. I told him to go before my Mum set eyes on him. As he later told me, when he finally got home and was served dinner, he sniffed it, gave a spoonful to a dog and watched it before he could eat it.
We became gentlemen afterwards, there are some parents "madder" than you if you want to attempt madness.
Never stopped laughing. Anytime the three jolly friends meet, we just remember and laugh...

The times are hard so laugh & let out the pressure�