Considering the high cost of fuel, I might have just paid a bride price

It was tough choosing a title for this blog post. So I asked my friends on Twitter and Facebook to help me out. The best response was "Considering the high cost of fuel, I might have just paid my bride price". But I ended up choosing editing it a bit to reflect this story. Because, 'a' stands for the cost of bride price while 'my' stands for the cost of what I am paying to get married. Confused? Read on. The real blog post starts after the period. 

Some of you might know I am going on a spree of making people smile this year. I call it the "I Made Ghana Better Today" campaign. Check it on Twitter, our hashtag is #IMGBT. I was proud to donate blood earlier and can't wait to do it again. One of my favorite things to do as part of this is give people rides to their destinations so far as it's not too much out of the way. I already talked about giving a number of rides in this blog post. Yesterday, I gave a couple of people a ride. And just thinking about that again makes me smile.

There were a couple of Nigeria-related blog posts on this blog yesterday. MIghTy African talked about his Lagos experiences and Ayooluwaato Eze threw some light on Naija too. This story involves 2 Nigerians too. You might say "I Made Nigeria Better Today". But I'd like to think "I Made Ghana Better Today" in turn because I made a couple of Nigerians like Ghanaians a lot. Some gargantuan Ghanaian hospitality. The kind of kindness that would make a father unshackle his daughter for a guy to sprinkle some more on a precious human being. Hey Ato, would you get to the story already? Okada dey boot lef me.

You might already know that some re-distribution of wealth happened on Nkrumah's March 6th when a tag-team of unidentifed people pick-pocketed my phone and wallet. By the way, Airtel, change your website to reflect that the Accra Mall shop stand is closed for business at 7pm on Saturday. It says 9pm on the website. After arriving late at the shop on Saturday, I had to go back again on Sunday to replace a stolen SIM card. I told the customer care lady about my request and she started working on it. If they had told me, I could not get my phone number back, I would have gladly glowed and headed over to Glo. Luckily, the news was good and I had a new SIM card and my phone number back. Satan, you no go fit me!

I had spotted some chic going into the Forex Bureau. I remember thinking, she must be one of those rich kids about to go spend some of her parents' money. I spotted her again walking by me as I was rounding off my time at the Airtel Stand. In fact, I had spotted many ladies but this one looked a little familiar, and hotter. She looked like some other chic who is "heja-heja" on my face now but I can't remember her name. But this chic. Maybe I didn't know her from Adam. Maybe I knew her from TV. I surely didn't know her from a club. I didn't try to go talk to her. I didn't even have a phone to collect her number. Yawa.

As I was leaving the main Accra mall (game) gate, I saw that this chic and a man who looked like a father were trying to charter a taxi. They were together, but not together like that. The man said the taxi driver was giving him an expensive price. I know eh! If you are taking a taxi driver who's been parked at the mall for a while, prepare to pay extra. In fact, taxis that have parked charge you the normal fare + sparking fee + parking fee. The lady and man walked off, and then I approached the taxi drivers and asked... "Where are they going?" "MJ Grand". Ha! That's really close to where I am going. Let me go give these two a ride. And it's not because I wanna know the chic's name or number. Hehe, if you just remembered my antenna blog post, clap for yourself. But for real I wasn't gonna sing "Tell Me Your Name". I just wanted to make someone's day. If this lady wasn't going to MJ Grand, the rest of this story wouldn't have happened and you wouldn't have heard about it.

I walked to the lady and man and said, "I can give you a ride to MJ Grand, if you want". The man gladly obliged, her daughter was befuddled. This can't be happening, she must have thought. After a couple of certainizing (yes, I just made this word up, come mark me wrong) sureties, they were following me to the #vimride. I got there early to clean up the back seat for ... erm .... the chic.... and then opened the boot to put the Shoprite items they had bought. I kicked off a conversation with the Dad, we were talking about how I looked Nigerian. Nigeria, the Niger Delta, Bayelsa, etc. He was convinced I was Nigerian, but I had to diasppoint him, though I could have just kicked in my Nigerian alter-ego. I learnt a lot from Mr. E (what do you want his real name for?). The lady didn't make much of a sound, aside for when I mentioned my Nigerian name. "My Nigerian name is Ayooluwaato Eze, my parents united Nigeria". But for real, how many Nigerians do you know whose parents are Igbo and Yoruba? I choose boldly. 

I showed the lady and her father my street just before I dropped them off at MJ Grand Hotel. Mr. E had worked for NTA before and that made me collect his business card. He's now my buddy buddy o! He now runs a hotel in Naija. He must have been in Accra for vacation with his daughter. Or maybe his daughter lives in Accra and he had come to visit her? Ha! So the chic dey around. Noice! I didn't ask the lady for her name or get any information about her. If I really need that, all I have to do is give Mr. E a call. Maybe he will invite me for dinner with the lady and pay the whole bill. Lol, wetin no happen before? I think the best scenario would be hanging somewhere minding my business or friends and then the lady would walk up to me and say "Are you Ayooluwaato Eze?" :-D

PS: The crazier thing that could happen would be for the lady to find this blog post by googling around and then writing a comment on this post. That would be something eh? 

PPS: The comment hasn't come, but I did generate this blog post after :-)