Timmyz Tales - Whatsapp, Tango, Foxtrot - Part 2

Ghosting lasted about 2 and half hours. Van Damme walked past my desk a couple of times and caught me on my phone. I could hardly ignore his message without coming off as if I was overthinking the situation.

I didn't respond to Fela but I responded to Folarin and Van Damme

Me to Folarin; Lol, Very funny Boss

Me to VD: No I don't have a boyfriend that would object to me hanging with you”, "but that doesn't mean I don't have a boyfriend”.

Van Damme; let me drop you off tonight

Me; I am riding with Mr Folarin

Van Damme; please let me take you home

Me; *takes snapshot of chat* sends it to Igho

Igho see where they are begging me to drop me off shaa.....

Me to Van Damme; Okay ( he is better company than Folarin anyway)

It's 4:25pm, I need Folarin to sign off on some reimbursements, nice opportunity to let him know I won't be riding home with him. I go over there and he says, “I need a favor please, let me pay for your Uber home. My mum is in town and I need to see her on the mainland.”

I couldn’t understand, (please how is that a favour) I said to him, “Ahn! No please. I am fine, I will ride with Van Damme”. Folarin nodded and tilted his head in a bit of uncertainty, as to whether to say something or nah. I took the cue and quickly walked away from what would have turned into an interrogation

At 5:30pm I saw Van Damme pack up, he walked over to me and said, I am ready when you are. I said "I'm ready now" and started to put my things together while Van Damme headed out. All packed up and outside the office, I had just put my hand in my purse to fetch my phone and ask Van Damme where he’d parked when Someone crept up on me from behind and said “Babe, please talk to me”

It was Fela. Kai! How awkward!!

My head is bursting with mixed emotions..... what am I supposed to do now?
I love Fela. I feel betrayed by his omission of a very salient part of his life, but I love him.
Van Damme is a very nice young man, who has offered me a ride home. Ps: I just gave a pseudo-impression that I'm not in a relationship
How am I supposed to play this one out without having to explain too much?

I weighed my options, I am going to hear Fela out, I will sort Van Damme out later.

I called Van Damme and dismissively said, ”please go on without me, I need to sort something out”*click off*  I didn't give him the chance to ask questions, then I looked at Fela and said “Please, don't just show up at my workplace without reason like this again”. Harsh I know, but he caught me unawares and he is not on my good side.. I wasn't ready for these theatrical shenanigans.  He looked at me as though he was about to say something sarcastic and then changed his mind, raised his brows in agreement and fauxed a smile.

I followed him to his car, and as he opened the door for me to get in Van Damme drove past, looking me straight in the eye, Oh Shit!!!

On the ride to the "make up spot" I was aggressively texting Igho; all in a bid to avoid conversation with Fela. Igho was not responding doe ..BLIMEY!!!

source: Pacittisblog.com

Fela took me to this little Italian restaurant right next to Pizzeria on Musa Yar'adua.  I haven't ever really heard any buzz about it but he must know people there because they had prepared a nice little "make up spot" outside for us and the music was nice. The waiters were extra nice and as soon as I sat down, one of them came with a dozen red roses and a card that said 'I'm sorry babe, I miss you'. My heart started singing tingling songs and doing a little victory dance. My mind was telling me nooooo, but my body!!!!, my body was telling me yeees (in R-kellys voice).

I had already forgiven him, and he knew it. He has a baby and I am not going to punish him for that. At least he is responsible enough to own it and take care of the child regardless of what might have transpired between him and his baby mama. I could hear Ighos voice compelling me to ask questions, but what more do I want to know that he hasn't already mentioned. Most of me just wanted to sit on his lap and laugh about nothing and just be happy with him.

Fela made me happy from within. He is the cynosure of my heart; he almost can't do wrong by me. Knowing that I have forgiven him without saying anything, he starts to talk about work and how his house misses my scent and bla and bla and bla. At about 9pm my phone starts vibrating. Van Damme was calling. I didn't pick up.

I checked my messages instead;
Igho: babe, Fela will not be your downfall, say AMEN

From Van Damme, there were a myriad of messages starting with “ boyfriend or no?” and ending with “please be okay for me”.

I put down my phone and smile impishly to Fela who stopped talking, as my attention had shifted.
I said to him ‘if I give up my hoes for you, and you fuck up again, you owe me new hoes’
I reached over and kissed him.. My heart felt at home..

I looked at my phone again;
Igho: Timmy, so you left Chunky Semi Caucasian for Baby Mama Drama?

I ignored her again, we'll talk later

My name is Timmy and I'm Fela Whooped

Timmyz Tales - Whatsapp, Tango, Foxtrot

I had not seen Fela in a couple of days It felt like 2975years.

I am not sure why I am mad at him. I am not sure if it’s because I feel betrayed, or because it feels like I have been in a dishonest relationship. But I have consciously and intentionally avoided him. He sends me messages as though he saw me in the morning.

Yesterday it was “Hey babe, wanna do lunch”

The other day “I am going to Abuja this weekend, wanna come?”

Is he being cocky, ignorant, stupid or blindly persistent?

I decided to join the work crew on our bi-monthly movie break; it’s a thing we do every two weeks, where someone picks a movie and we all go to see it on a Wednesday. I’d normally skip it because of mid-week service, but then I started skipping it because of Fela. That wednesday, I chose to join the movie-wagon. 

My Work-Event Partner, Folarin couldn’t make it and he did something he probably shouldn’t have done. He looked over at a young man in the Finance Department and said to him “Take care of her and please give her a ride home”; Folarin and I secretly call this young man, Fat-boy-slim because he is chunky in a cute way and he is always eating salads and quinoa and all that kind of stuff.... still no difference.

Up till then, I had never really noticed this Chunky-young-mixed-race individual that everyone else calls Van Damme. I didn’t know why he was called Van Damme and I didn’t care.  I just knew his name was ‘Jean” pronounced (John, with an accent) and he was half Caucasian, half African and he was a healthy boy in a slightly chunky body.

Movie break, was a bonding period for co-workers and oh, did I bond? Jean and I established a rather circumstantial relationship. Within the 3 hours we spent together we exchanged quite a lot of personal information. His mother is French and his father is Yoruba, his name is actually “Jean-Claude Adeyinka” Hence the Van Damme. He moved to Nigeria from France when he was 9 years old, Secondary School boys won’t let him be great with his “Jean Claude" name, it morphed into Jean Claude Van Damme and now Van Damme. He speaks French, plays the guitar and the piano, appreciates art and listens to Opera in his vehicle… Hehe…. Stop thinking it, I am not swoon, he is just kinda cute in a "I want to pamper him" type of way.

Van Damme and I have since developed a whatsapp relationship. In the absence of Fela he filled my chatting void. It didn’t matter that he was only cubicles away. The Conversation was entertaining. From internal co-worker gossip, to other mundane stuff. 

It was (not particularly) funny (in a Ha-Ha way) when on Friday afternoon, after lunch, I had 3 different messages waiting on my whatsapp;

Van Damme: I haven’t made any particular plans for the weekend. Do you have a boyfriend that might object to me making plans with you?

Folarin: Madam T, you have not finished understanding your relationship with Fela, you are following Fat -Boy Slim... Whats up with you two? I can only handle one competition at a time o..

Fela: You never got back to me on this weekend in Abuja. I took the liberty of mailing you a ticket. I thought it might be a good time out to talk. How long are you planning on blanking me?  

thank goodness I turned off my read receipts a while ago, because those double blue ticks can like to gbegborun

Excuse me while I ghost on those messages.

Clearly I need to set Van Damme straight.

My name is Timmy...

A Dying but necessary occupation by Jemyma

My precious friend - Jem Jem wrote this.

source; www.quickmemes.com

I am one of those people who type in retardese for fun.

I am also one of those people who get irked when people type retardese to me when I am writing normal intelligent English.

Let’s just say I like to eat my cake and have it or maybe I’m irked only because I don’t know you well enough to tell if this is how you type for real for real, or you are just having informal conversation.

However, in supposedly formal documents and articles, I find that retardese and other informal lingua is steady making its way to our pages.

There’s also the disaster of misspellings and inappropriate use of tenses (I’m trying to avoid saying bad grammar here).

For example, I once received an invitation to a seminar that read “Your invited…” instead of “You are..” and this is not a solitary case. It’s fast becoming a popular case. And my eyes bleed when I see these things.

Growing up, I once saw a job opening ad on a newspaper for a proofreader. I didnt know what it was or meant at the time, so I asked my Dad to explain what it meant to be a proofreader. I was way younger and unqualified,  but I remember thinking that it would be a fun responsibility to have.

Unfortunately I don’t think that’s a thing anymore. Being addressed as an editor is a more glamorous title. Besides with the rise in freelance journalism, writing and blogging, we seem to have convinced ourselves that passion to get the job done is more important than accurate content.who grammar epp?  The urgency of real time publications and updates hardly leave enough time for “skimming throughs” and “proofreading” so we have error-prone articles to serve.

I’m older and maybe informally qualified,  but I’d really love to proofread your articles for you. Because I know there will be many like me who share in my agony. I am volunteering to be the proofreading martyr. If you ever need help in that regard, I’m your guy.

Send me an email ☺
Peace & Love,
Jemjem.