I Had Never Been That Embarrassed In My Entire Life

I Had Never Been That Embarrassed In My Entire Life

By Cami Ezenwa

It makes awesome sense to learn to laugh at life sometimes. Or, how else would one be able to survive its overtly traumatised dawn.

Those in the countryside, especially in those days of active and eventful adolescent life, understood and practiced this principle to the latter.

And it made all the difference in their lives, allowing them to enjoy it to the tilt.

You could sight neigbourhood youths in their number, lumber about, everywhere and to no destination in particular. With no cares in the world and no burdens in their hearts, even remote incidents and happenstances provided them sufficient reasons to launch into uproarious laughers. And sometimes they could just assemble at the village square or any other foreyard of their fancy cracking jokes on end.

Cami Ezenwa

Pray however, not to be the centre of attention; otherwise, your entire day could just be ruined, with associated nightmares for the days ahead.

– I Had Never Been That Embarrassed In My Entire Life 1

I, am a witness. And somewhat, it taught me the wisdom of playing only where you have competence; not to encroach on strange territories because you see others there; I mean, not to prance about in a field you have least capacity for its counter pebbles.

I learnt the lesson in a harsh way while still swimming in adolescent life and all the fun it availed us in our peaceful and very enjoyable Isokpo Ogbaku clan in Imo State.

In our clique for example, you would have thought that the shortest and obvious dullard should talk least and listen more; as a matter of fact, be the weeping boy of the pack, but the reverse was the case. Everything nature denied him in terms of height and academic brilliance, it multiplied for him in street intelligence, monkey ruggedness and a caustic tongue. He was the ultimate joke poker.

He was shut and stout with a head that protruded much behind. In fact, if he ran, it tilted backwards so much that he was almost looking skywards. Looking at him sometimes, you could even start laughing.

How he picked so much confidence to be the source of caustic jokes on others, despite his obvious physiological drawbacks, beat my imagination. Simply, you picked on him at your peril. Naïve me, I hadn’t reckoned.

I Had Never Been That Embarrassed In My Entire Life 2

Whatever came over me one day, I saw myself describing him, though rightly, as short for his age and as wicked as the devil!

Ol’ boy, you needed to have witnessed it: he gave it back to me in sterner and more biting measures.

For someone who had a way of attracting attention to anything he wanted to say, so that the impact would never be lost; he didn’t miss the opportunity.

First, he looked me over, starting from my head down, then he said:

“I cannot want to have your kind of height”, his face in total disgust, “because, I don’t know, whether God, while giving some of you height, totally removes your brain”.

Whether he borrowed the line, or it was from his ever bitter bile, it didn’t matter.

You needed to see the uproar that followed in the midst, and the confusing that promptly settled in my brain. At that moment, honestly, I didn’t think I needed the so-called height advantage that I wanted to throw about, simply because of the way he had defamed me. It seemed, almost truly, that his brain, not my brain, had lost its bearing, its ability for a counter motion.

For the rest of us, their lunch for laughter had been served, and they relished every bit of it, jiggling and laughing until tears were coming out of their eyes.

And one of them, wanting to add salt to an already festering wound, had put in: “So, Oguchi (the guy who launched the offensive against me) are you now saying that some people, some very people here, think through their anus…?”

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I am not sure I was able to take my dinner later that day. All I could remember was that I dozed off from a long brood over life.

And many years down the line, it had taught me one or two lessons, principal, being: never to start a fight you do not have the capacity to finish.

Also, that you may not have been created in the mould people call beautiful or handsome, but it does not say you cannot make a success of life. It depends on how you want to handle it.

Forget the areas of limitation and focus on those of strength. Imagine if Oguchi, with the supposed long list of limitations, could slam someone supposedly endowed with the right physiologies in the right places, what then are we talking about?

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As a matter of fact, if he were to join the current legion of jesters that compere our ceremonies, he would be in a hell of money. Just standing before any audience, I am sure the entire place would erupt into laughter.

Honestly, I Had Never Been That Embarrassed In My Entire Life

Thanks so much for your time.