Why Yawning is Rude

I was sincerely tired, I swear.

I was not yawning because I wanted to be rude; I was just tired. But my father did not care. He said, ‘I have told you countless times, you don’t yawn when people are talking to you; especially your elders.’  I wanted to say, ‘But what if I am tired and I can’t control the yawning?’ But I know my father; he wouldn’t even let me complete the statement before he gives me a dirty slap.

Yesterday, Doctor Folami  (my dad’s friend) was over at our house. I honestly don’t like that man because he always feels like he knows everything and my dad irritates me with the way he behaves around him. He (my dad) will tell my mom and me to go and make Suya for ‘my friend, the good doctor’ Who asks a non-aboki to make suya????

So, yesterday when I was serving him his Chapman (that I made), he told me to sit down. ‘You’re getting older o. So you’re in Arts class?’

‘No sir. Science class’  I said.

‘Oh?’  he seemed shocked ‘I’m sure you’re finding it hard. Are you?’

‘No sir. It’s easier than making this Chapman’  I said.

Then he laughed and before I knew it, he started talking about his life as a science student in 1982. It was very boring. Very very. I figure that his patients are motivated to get well soon because, why would you want to be coming to listen to this boring person every month? or every day?

Then I started to yawn, and the look on my father’s face made me stop mid-yawn and then clumsily shut my mouth.

Later that night, my father severely punished me and then asked me to come up with a short write-up on why it is rude to yawn. I am to turn it in this evening. This is what I wrote:

Why Yawning is Rude

Yawning is the act of stretching the jaws and simulating a lion’s roar to show that one is tired. It is funny because lions don’t intend their roar to communicate tiredness. But we must always trust human beings to be queer.

Many have said that the act of yawning is rude; because it conveys boredom, especially when a conversation is going on. I am in total support. But how else do we tell boring people that they are boring? It is like saying that insecticides are bad for our lungs and so we should never spray them. But how else do I effectively kill a swarm of mosquitoes? Nuclear energy?

I know that point is a little off, but I’m just saying that everyone is pointing fingers and no one is proffering solutions. What other means do we communicate the boredom of a person to them? People who yawn just don’t want to be uncouth and say, ‘To be honest sir, you are boring me out of my brains. Speech was never made for you. You deserve to be stoned in the public for the sake of world peace.’ 

So you see that I am the good person here.

I feel prosecuted and maligned.

Because my rude is good.

🙂