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The alarm went off at exactly
7:00 am and as Foluke stretched on her bed like an enthusiastic yoga novice,
she wondered why alarms could not have bad memories. She yawned and
acknowledged that this was going to be yet another busy day, as a mental check
list of her obligations for this unwelcome Monday morning flittered through her
mind. Foluke lives for the weekend, but from her experience, the weekend does
not seem to care much about her, as it is always in a hurry to take off and
usher in that dreaded cousin of its, Monday.
Collating data on the different
classes and types of hair dressing salons in Lagos can safely be classified as
quite useless work, but since the advertising firm Foluke works with just
received a huge contract from a major hair care producer, such weird
information is suddenly relevant, and Foluke is the unfortunate bearer of the
even weirder responsibility of making such information useful. Foluke reached
for her phone and checked her Instagram account. “Hmmm, sixteen likes since
last night” she thought. Tayo, a guy she met at a friend’s birthday dinner the
evening before, had followed her on Instagram at the party, and had liked
twelve of her pictures, even one from forty-five weeks ago. This certain Tayo spoke
to her throughout the party, but despite this, she was not sure whether he was
flirting or not, and Foluke prides herself on being able to tell very quickly,
when someone, in her mother’s words, “fancies her”. She went through his
pictures, and quickly noticed that almost all the comments on his pictures were
by ladies, who would say things like “nice picture dear”, “always looking
smashing hun”, “my friend from before before”. These comments seemed to be a
pattern, and Foluke made a mental note to be careful of this potential heart
breaker.
Before Foluke realised it, it was
8:30 am, she mumbled a prayer while laying her bed and sorting her outfit for
the day, rushed in and out of the bathroom in time almost faster than Usain
Bolt’s 100 meters world record, and dashed out of the house. Despite the fact
that Foluke lived not too far away from the office, the dreaded Monday morning
traffic ensured that she arrived at 9:45 am – forty-five minutes late. The only
act of benevolence on the part of the dreadful Monday morning was that her
supervisor had not come into the office yet, but had gone to a meeting at the
office of the hair care brand.
At work, Foluke switched on her
computer, immediately opened her Facebook page and saw that Tayo had sent a
friend request. She accepted his request and did some major Facebook stalking.
She noticed that he really loved taking pictures, a quality she classifies as a
bit vain for a guy, but with such good looks like his, maybe his picture fetish
could not really be classified as vanity, but as a necessity. She stalked him,
their mutual friends, friends he had taken pictures with, and picture lead into
picture, just like a spider’s web. Foluke was entangled in this sticky web
until 11:00 am.
She snapped back to her senses
and decided to finalise the report, but she received an alert on her phone from
her mobile network which read “get free news update for only N25 per month” and
she wondered if anyone ever subscribed to such updates when there are numerous
blogs to visit that give news updates to suit different pallets, ranging from unsavoury
news about leaked naked celebrity pictures, or bland news like what the
president has been getting up to. She picked up her phone and decided to check
out some of these blogs. Foluke checked out only three of her favourite blogs
and by the time she was done, it was 11:50 am.
This is how Foluke’s day continues.
From blog post to online news, back to Instagram and of course a full one hour
lunch break. Without realising it, she spends about six hours of her day on the
internet, and only 45 minutes on the report, which she still could not finalise.
Foluke’s supervisor returned to the office smiling, as the meeting with the
hair care brand was productive, so she took her chance and asked for an
extension till Tuesday in order for her to submit a perfect report.
And I remember a book by Sidney
Sheldon, which I believe is called “if tomorrow comes.”
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