I had a valentines day gift post scheduled to publish today but unfortunately i want in the mood to edit any post about valentine gifts. Fortunately, i remembered that there was a time i use to write hilarious posts about my experiences just for fun. I am way put together now but i used to be an awkward, clumsy person. I was always in some unfortunate situation and I hated it so much.. But looking back now.. these situations make for the best stories. So for this valentine day, I have decided to resurrect one i really liked. I initially wrote the story on Naija Single Girls blog and on this blog again in 2018 . PS: If you cant stand grammatical errors then don’t bother clicking. I tried to keep the post as similar as possible to the original, but i included more context and some new opinions in Italics.
This is the story of how I almost got “valled”.. but my enemies were hard at work..
Before I start my story i have to do two things:
- Put up a disclaimer
- Give some context that might make you pity me more.
Disclaimer: This story is set in Nigeria and contains some 9ja humor.. if you are not Nigerian or you didn’t grow up in Nigeria, some things and my grammar might seem weird to you. Don’t worry, I am not crazy. I wrote this sometime in 2017 and I tried not to edit too much out of it.. The event also happened almost 15 years ago from 2020 sooo…. expect some things not to make sense.
Start of my story
back in the dayssssssss….before we all knew and cared about global warming.. lol i’m Joking.. just move on.
I used to be a tomboy in secondary school. I would post old pictures here but nope.. Affliction cannot rise a second time…. The point i am trying to make is that… I wasn’t hot like that and boys were not queuing to toast me but one thing i had going for me was that we were all cool. I was the guys guy!!! In fact once when a boy attempted to ask me out, I was so shocked.. Like.. Come o.. Are we not guys again? I made him feel very stupid..Not that i didn’t like it sha.. i was just taken aback.. Now that I am grown, I can now admit that I became a Tomboy as a coping mechanism for being a late bloomer.
Then, in contrast, There was this very hot girl in my class… let’s call her Z… this babe was a northern belle… the babe fine die… She looked exotic AF… Guys used to be all over her and valentine’s day was the day we knew the guy wey him pepper rest wella… the one that had prepared all year to impress her… this was the one that was serious about dating her cos she went with nothing but the best… the best as in the finest, tallest, smartest, most popular boy… (All the things that impressed us in secondary school na. ) She was also my roommate….
Back to our story…. Valentine day also called vals day… The way vals day worked in my prison-style, typical Nigerian boarding school located in the middle of nowhere was that students will either bribe, beg or bully the caterer or home economics teachers to make cakes or snacks for them.. then do the same to the tuck shop attendants to help get fruit wine (LOL)… the desperate ones will bribe the security guards to go out of school and the ones with connections will beg a corper teacher or a really cool teacher to help them buy stuff from town… The Ghetto guys… It was total chaos… So most times.. It’s not the guys with the most money that we consider as the bawses.. .. It’s the guy that takes the most risk, goes the extra mile to buys stuff that’s outta this world (chei.. our world was soo little… ) those were the ones we liked…
A regular good guy can beg the school caterer to bake a huge cake for you and buy you plenty of stuff from the tuck shop. But that wasn’t very impressive, that was a regular drrrregular valentine.. I mean.. tuck shop wasn’t running away and you got to taste cakes if you were friendly enough with Food and Nutrition students… .… now imagine the other guy that gets you maybe Mr Biggs rice and chicken all the way from Lagos or Ilorin (my school was 10 hours away from Lagos via road, only God knows how we weren’t dropping dead like flies from eating spoilt food)… Maryland cookies from only God knows where, maybe a dress from the abroad, then flowers and chocolate (mars and sneakers, the really big boys bought malteasers) then maybe a more sophisticated wine than Eva fruit wine. … . Into a school that was at least 1 hour away from proper civilisation (our parents really sent us into the forest to get an education 🙁 )…. This was the kinda guy we all wanted to date… As his babe, you got bragging rights for a whole term (cos our attention span was short.)… PS: This was not a feminist environment.. the guys bought all the gifts for the girls and you were lucky to get boxers and singlet for vals as a guy
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't have any boyfriend, neither was anyone toasting me. I had already accepted that the only Gift I was getting for valentine was the Gift of life from our Lord Jesus Christ..
Some hostels had this cute but very very annoying tradition where when someone gets a “surprise” gift, someone turns off the hostels light temporarily, then the lucky lady enters her room and the lights suddenly come one and …… “Surprise”!!!! your valentine gifts magically appear on your bed or in your locker.. Cute for the lucky lady and her friends, annoying for everyone else… especially the baeless, single girls like me trying to read or cry in peace.
After a successful day of watching people collect their balloons 🎈 , flowers 💐 , biscuits 🍪 or their low quality school made cakes 🎂 , My friends and I made our way back to the hostel. Oh, there was no light electricity for my non nigerians. Btw.. Which meant a surprise gift lurking around… I rolled my eyes… “These people won’t let someone see road on top valentine.”. …
My friends and I got to my room to gist then I opened my locker and guess what fell out…. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes of gifts and a massive cake at the top section of my locker (my locker had 3 sections)…. As soon as my friends heard this, they turned on a torchlight and started screaming!!!! She got Valled.. She got valled!!!! we go chop today o!!!!!! Everybody started running to my room to find out what I got for valentine.. Luckily for me, they hadn’t turned on the light and I ran to lock the door to my room before anyone could get in. Then i became STRESSSSSED!!!! Something was definitely wrong. I could feel it in my bones.
Oh, another break in transmission to give you more historical context, Whenever anyone got a valentine gift, almost every single person in the hostel wants to know what you got… it was really so they can gauge the kind of boyfriend or toaster you had. Some girls will come into your room and say awwwww, and actually be happy for you, the hating ass heifers will snicker, some just want to know how they can get their share, some want to know how much your boyfriend spent, so they know if hes worth snatching or not, others are the lie detectors for those lie-lie girls that are always bragging about their partners wealth but we all know they are the ones funding the relationship, some are just there for the gist… the real Tatafos.. …. And if you got a gift from another person’s Boyfriend… SCANDAL!!!!!! Premium entertainment for the rest of the term Lol. You must explain WHY or another person will make up a story and spread it to the whole school.. So the babes who did not like wahala, babes with broke boyfriends and side chicks would collect their gifts in secret and sneak them into the hostel in the dead of the night. It was that serious
Back to my gift.. As soon as i saw the gifts, something didn’t feel right… I knew in my heart of heart of hearts that something was horribly wrong..
“ Babe.. Wetin you get? Who valled you? How many gifts?” Plenty questions started from my friends.. I was speechless o..
No no no no…. The devil is a liar I said to myself. My enemies want to disgrace me in public abi.. … the girls at the window who almost got into my room when my friends shouted were demanding to come in… “who got valled in room 20?” they asked. I had to be sharp. I had to get to the bottom of this asap. Apparently it was one of two things… I was either getting pranked or a mumu boy sent an absentminded junior to deliver the gifts orrrr did someone elses boyfriend like me? I didn’t care sha … whatever it was… the outcome wasn’t gonna be good.. abi did I actually have a secret admirer? who was this boy? hope he didn’t buy any razz gift for me o. I hope he isn’t t a loser too.. cos i had a reputation to protect. I remember one valentine where a roommate of mine received Hausa perfume ontop “secret valentine”. We used that perfume to kill the mosquitoes in our room. She almost didn’t recover from the jokes. Dear readers, I was truly stressed and it wasn’t a laughing matter. I didn’t want to be called mai sauro for the next 3 months.. Abi e ma gbami!!
I dived into my locker and began to look for a card.. What kind of mess-up will it be if another girl enters my room and claims I stole her Val gift or “na mistake”… after I have basked in the glory of collecting gifts.. Premium gifts to be precise.. I wasn’t gonna survive the shamee, the laughter, the snickersss.. I checked for a card with my friends’ torchlight… No card o… I was finished…
Mo ku Mo gbe Mo daran...
I started to bring out the gifts and at that point I knew these were not mine. I don’t remember what the gifts were but I think i saw a bra… I didn’t even have breast. I had a mother that would have buried me alive if she ever found out that a boy gave me a bra.!!! I started to sweat…. profusely. I had to find the owner asap!!! These are split-second decisions here o… I started panicking… my friends were getting confused and impatient…. Those ones just wanted to chop free Mr Biggs rice…
“this must be a mistake…. these are not mine o… ” I told my friends… “maybe they are for you sally“
“me that my hostel is the next block” sally (not real name )replied.. “Ode, open the gifts joor”
I started passing the gift ownership around until something clicked… why is the finest girl in my class who is also my roommate, sleeping under her blanket with one miserly flower on her table… Z hasn’t gotten valled yet so it made sense to just pass them to her.. They were probably for her sef..
“oooohhhhh.. The gifts are for Z” i Shouted.
See sense … but whether it made sense or not, I didn’t care.. I just wanted someone else to claim ownership of the gifts and then if they are rightfully mine… the messenger will come back and tell me. Then i can bask in more glory and the shame will be passed to someone else….. That was the plan. My friends finally understood too and we quickly passed all the gifts to Zs locker/table and then started shouting… “Z got valled!1 Z got valled” The Gremlins outside the door and windows got even rowdier and they brought light, so we opened the door and like 30 girls ran in to see the vals gift…The noise and suspense had attracted more people.. I won’t lie.. I was pained sha. Relieved, but pained.
Anyways.. Long story short.. The vals gifts were actually for Z, the Ode messager that wanted to ruin my life came and confirmed it… She was just waiting for people to run inside the room before she turned on the light. I almost wanted to punish her every day for the rest of the term but I didn’t want other people to know how salty I was.
I thanked the gods of my grandfather and great-grandfather who were protecting me from the hands of shame and disgrace…
Nah men… I was not about to have that kind of thing written about me in our local Big brother… This was the advent of Big Brother Africa and the school ofofos Press club started this despicable thing called “big brother is watching” where they aired other people’s dirty laundry and posted it on notice boards around school….. Your gist getting to them was the worst thing that could happen to you. Your rep went down like super Marios life lol.. Imagine!! this was my biggest problem at the time… I miss those days cos adulting is truly a scam and my problems are way bigger now.
Anyways, In conclusion, I went to bed that night with soo many feelings .. Adrenaline, disappointment, surprise, relief and intense hunger. Hunger because Z ate her tantalising Mr Biggs rice that night and didn’t even offer me one base… not even 1 spoon. In Patience Jonathan voice… There is God o!!!
Happy valentines day guys..
Share your horror stories with me on twitter, let’s laugh together.
Let me bless your eyes with a rare picture of me in Secondary school
