LOL AT VALENTINE

At about midnight, the owl shrieked and the crow swept by, settling for the middle spot on the roof of his house. The witching hours had been  ushered in. Yesterday’s blues had gone, to be replaced with today’s reds…

                                         -        Sir M^cKay Fanny (Shot in the Head and Dead)

It’s amazing when it’s on only certain designated days you notice what probably has always been there, like my red ribbon, which I use to signify that I have a part in fighting the AIDS scourge. I had been wearing it for a while but only this morning did a young lassie notice it, predictably because today is Valentine’s Day. 

She’s not the only one and I do not really wear red ribbons around, AIDS or no AIDS, -_-.

That said, I didn’t wake up today trying to notice what nuances red would assume. It just so happened that as I was about to board my bus today, a young lass (they are always lasses) I saw yesterday in my bus had dressed up in a contraption of red, white, and some other colours my brain fails to recall now. No time. She wasn’t in my bus today, only the next one.

And so, the reds started to pop up.             

There was a middle-aged woman in a red top hurrying off to work on foot. The love was either still alive in her marriage (I hope), or she was doing the best to delude herself by indulging her fantasies. There was another young girl strolling along. She was in a pink top so cheap you could spot it 10 miles away. Because my eye sight is better than everyone else’s, I saw it from 15 miles away. I have nothing against cheap stuff, I probably have a few myself, but the idea is for everyone else not to realize, and if they realize, please not from 15 miles away. Some other lassie was showing cleavage, and the shown area was describably red. I'm wondering if the boobs got too much action during the witching hour, or maybe she just dabbed them with rouge in the spirit of Valentine. I pitch for the former.

Moving on, I also saw a guy sporting white earphones with a “B” in lower case. The red, I understand, but I couldn’t quite wrap my considerable head around the “B”. Then I had a sudden brave wain… brain wave (I know, sorry). “Eureka!,” I shouted there and then in the Ikeja-bound bus. It was a surprise nobody heard the shout because I heard it so loud in my mind. In short, I suddenly realized that in certain parts of the country, it’s quite the norm to pronounce “V” as “B”, and whoever gave the guy the headphones must either be playing a practical joke on the dude, or must hail from the parts of the country where Valentine is Balentine. There was Iya Risi, who normally only adorns the front of her shop with beer and malt crates. Today, she had slipped a Coca Cola crate in the middle, presumably, in the spirit of God-knows-what.

Soon after, I noticed that even LG had repainted their Allen store red. I mean I’ve been up and down this route for a number of years now and it used to be black, even till yesterday, although I’ll admit I had a brief stint with an ophthalmologist yesterday and words such as “previously colour-blind” and “all is now well” may have been uttered. Only today, I also noticed that jerry-can totters had replaced the black can covers they were wont to use before with red ones, presumably in the spirit of Valentine. There was even a man who I assume got too caught up in the “Valentin” spirit. He just laid there beside the road, sprawled, a hole through his forehead and lots of red adorning his head. I assumed he was putting up a public show though no one quite bought it. They were really avoiding him by at least 4 feet.

But perhaps the most enduring memory of today so far was the sight of a pretty petite young lassie who had on a white top transparent at the top, underneath which a black brassiere gawked at me (not the other way round I assure you), over white skin-tight jeans and red foot wear. Over the top half of this was a red cross-body sash, held at the waist, with the hands of the sash dangling to just slightly below the legs. That transparent part of the top couldn’t just keep their eyes off me. Dirty twin bastards.

And me, I’m only trying my hands at some alchemy, a modified version, mind you. I’m aiming to produce red by mixing a variety of colours. I’m in the lab as we speak, wish me luck!

In all, have a sweet day - Valentine’s, Champions’ League, or even the loneliest of lonelies.