Cooking Lies and Jollof

My sweat pores overworked today, dear Lord! I was in so much trouble; it was almost hilarious.

So, I had been lying to my dad about my grade in school because my dad is a very strict disciplinarian and I just grew up believing that in order to live a flogging-free life, I have to lie. After my first year in the university, I just knew I could not make the kind of grade my father wanted for me. It was not even that I had failed my exams, it was that I finally admitted that school was not for me.

I want to paint, and paint every day of my life. I am so so so good at painting. If I had been enrolled for fine or visual arts; that would have been swell. But I was studying Mechanical Engineering; and was gallantly sucking at it. I was fine with my bad grades as long as I didn’t add any extra year to the boring 5 years and as long as I actually used the time to get really good at painting and to make a name for myself in the Art world. But my father; he would never have been fine with that.

So, I lied and lied about my grades. I told him for my first two years that I was on a first class; 4.6 and 4.5. Then my next two years were really tough so I dropped a little, I told him – 4.35. And he was livid! If only he knew that my real CGPA was 3.7 and was fast spiraling down.

Anyway, this evening, my mom came down to the kitchen and told me to take up some Jollof rice I earlier cooked to my dad in his study. When I placed the food in front on him, he smiled weirdly and said. ‘Hmm.. thank you my daughter (WEIRD!). Sit please, join me’

‘Okay, daddy?’  I said, suddenly feeling nervous

He took a spoon of the rice and closed his eyes as he chewed, ‘Hmmm… This is so good Kemi. So so good’

‘Thank you daddy’, I laughed even more nervously.

He opened his eyes and looked at me weird, ‘Aren’t you going to eat?’

‘Erm, no, I’m full sir. Thank you. Plus there’s no extra spoon. Don’t worry, there’s more downstairs.’ I replied, wiping my palms on my dress.

‘Hmm….’ He said ‘You don’t like to eat the things you cook? Even your lies?’

Ah-ha!

‘Sir?’ I said.

‘The lies you cook and your Jollof rice too. You can’t eat them?’

‘Sir?’

‘Don’t sir me. Oh, you think I don’t know you’ve been lying about your grades in school and what you will come out with? Your Professor Apabio is my old friend. I just said, let me even ask him how my daughter’s grades are. I was even going to ask him just so that he’ll know my daughter did not fail like his own daughter did last year and had to re-sit. But guess what? You have 3 carry-overs and your cgpa is 2.4. What was your plan exactly? Ehn?!’

I don’t even know if I peed myself or my buttocks were sweating, but the chair on which I sat felt wet.

The cooking of Jollof rice and lies bit got me laughing inside though.