Friday, December 6, 2013

On my life, for my children

Just like that (snaps fingers) November ended with me drooling over Men in Gray.
My watch says Monday December 2 but it could be wrong. Since when do watches give the date? Last I heard, they told time.
Then again with all these modernization, cashless policies and what's not going on in Nigeria it really shouldn't come as a surprise if watches now serve as POS machines after all, most atm's in PH don't work, I keep curbing the urge to throw confetti and drapes around them and call them my work of art. Hmm... Graffiti is an idea.
Speaking of cashless Nigeria. I'd tell a tale of how Nigeria's cashlessness did not save my life (or come close to resembling life saving).
This tale begun on sunday with me feeling peevish and missing check-in by 3minutes.
As it happened, there were about 20 of us in the same boat as well. (Kinda makes you wonder how many people were on the flight) while we stood in front of the ticketing office for the 5th hour appealing, pleading and seeking ways to make the next flight about 13 tickets appeared for the next flight and were magically disappearing beneath our noses.

The saga of the day is something that'd make for a classic movie with the end credits revealing "Alejandro" riding off towards the sunset on his stallion with the fingers of the alluring "Sophia" daintily fastened around his impressive waist. Sadly the script didn't end that way.
It continued...
The day after found more people, human beings to be precise kneeling down in front of the ticketing agent for the same airline company. One person that got me really troubled was a mother with her children. She knelt down while her children stood looking forlorn behind her. The flight was delayed by 30minutes, she was still up to one hour early, she had checked in online yet she was refused a boarding pass.
As I watched the tears trail down the lady's cheeks the rule that the customer is king flashed and burned in my minds eye.
Okay in my case I admit I was wrong. I should have left the house about 5 hours before the time (like I did today because I have nothing else to do with my life but to come and sit in the airport all day for a 45 minutes flight - add 2 hours to that and I'd be snugly in bed in Lagos if I traveled by road) but come on! To make grown men and women grovel and beg before they are given boarding pass for a flight they paid for with their hard earned cash?
"Me thinks something is seriously wrong".
Oh in that classic movie I was talking about, the twist would be from the people selling tickets for twice the price behind the ticketing office, people(human beings) with police escorts traipsing in 20 minutes after the boarding gate has been closed and the general bullying of the little people.

At this point, it is safe to wonder when the cashless story would begin.