Bribery: Do you reap or sow?

I stopped doing my Laundry myself after I met Hubby. And no, it was not that he started doing the laundry on my behalf. He simply banned me from adopting the washing measures of using a big bowl under the tap and sitting on a wooden "apoti" outside my flat while washing rigorously the clothes from the previous week. (You cannot conclude I am pako o just because I once washed my clothes with a big bowl and Omo detergent under the tap, so keep your opinions to yourself on who is butter and who is the pako)

Anyone familiar with my family will know that no matter the millions you make, my mum will NEVER allow you to waste money on a washing machine or any other machine for that matter that will prevent you from completing a task manually so it was never an option. Even after I started giving my clothes to some laundry company, my mum still had her reservations: "Ah, won ma ko bo aso e lasan lasan nii. Won ni gbo dada bobase fe. Won ma ko ma ko starchi si nii".("They willl simply make your clothes faded on time because they will not wash it the way you want but will simply use excessive starch to make it dry and hard)" And she usually enjoys the "mo sha ti so fun e pe koma fo aso e fun ra e?" (Haven't I told you severally to wash your clothes yourself) part when one of the many clothes returned by Iya Kofo Garment Care Services (The name is fake by the way) gets torn due to the excessive starch used. She will then go over and over (I have a feeling she was my hubby's mother in the past life considering they both know how to blow the little things out of proportion if given the chance) on the importance of exercising your muscles and body by doing things manually and keeping yourself young with the rigorous methods involved. Simply put: With my mum, why waste hard earned money giving out tasks you can complete manually with your God-given hands? That's why I have never bothered to broach the subject of taking her to the movies or simply go and spend the night at Southern Sun for mere pleasure. (What, you think I cannot afford it? Kpsheeew) She will bluntly request you give her the money to buy the CD of the movie when it comes out for N150 naira. As for the meals and hotel sleepover, she will break down all the ingredients used in making all the meals we will be served and let you know it may not even be up to N5000 compared to the alarming bill that will be presented at the end of our stay. For every morsel she will take, you will be made to understand the importance of prudence and the need to save for the future. And for the hotel room, you will have to explain whether the bed will automatically transport her to heaven when we sleep on it for the night

I have digressed. 

As I was saying, during one of our mushy wushy lovey dovey days of courtship(we both can see clearly now that the rain is gone) and I was caressing his cheeks in a captivating moment of love, he simply asked one day, "this your hand, do you use them to scrub sand paper every morning nii?Abi you used to carry bricks at some site before nii? Why are they so coarse like this? I must never make you slap me in anger o. The marks will be ingrained forever”. That's the man my family collected 42 tubers of yam from to marry me. He will dish the insult with a very straight face. He says it as it is so I have changed his baptismal name to "Inspector Karounwi Marimaso".

His point: I indulge in too many tasks and it has affected my palms so they have lost their softness. As a result, I was banned from washing, sweeping or any other task that requires the use of my palms in any given way. He simply tells me to look for someone to do the task and we will pay them once the job is done, except cooking ati tibi. (The rotten minded ones will know what I mean).

For him, the rule of the thumb is as simple as this: “Any service that can be done by greasing the right palm, then grease gladly and stop stressing yourself”. You may leave him impressed with the neatness of his environment but he is not the kind of person whose heart you can win by indulging in personal household chores or sweating to do menial tasks. As far as he is concerned, you are just a selfish person by not rubbing the right palm of the person that needs the tip to feed his/her family. (that's his excuse for tipping everybody he comes across) And I mean everybody. If you are reading this, chances abound you may have collected bribe from Hubby before.

This post is not about my hubby for those already yawning, but rather about the porous state of the society where we believe so much in tipping the right palms to get things done that probably the government should just legalise it once and for all. Hubby believes that is the only way you can contribute your quota in reducing the poverty state of the country. (Can you believe the justification & nexus?) I always marvel whenever we go out and we are attended to immediately. He calls me "aka gum" that I cannot part with any money and that I have selfish tendencies and don't like helping my fellow sisters & brothers in need. How will I simply give out money for a service that is required of you to do?(because I asked for my 10 naira change at Shoprite, or that we ate at a restaurant and the waiter was supposed to give me 250 naira change, i should let it go?) And at times, he is so convincing I feel like I am the bad person in the scheme of things.

Some while back, I went shopping at a popular mall and after making payment of almost 30000 naira for items of 29,980, the lady issued me my receipt and simply turned away to attend to the next person and I was like, "Excuse me, can I have my change?" She looked at me in a rather surprised way and simply said "I don't have change" and continued with the next customer. At about the same time, hubby said my name rather aloud (I am actually trying to be polite because he actually screamed my name as if I requested for free grocery) as he was almost by the door then, walked back to me and dragged me away. I was so enraged and told him there and then whether the lady would have agreed I paid her less if I did not have 20naira to complete the transaction. As usual, he waved off my cries of being cheated and said the attendant needed it more than I do. Trust me to make the nagging inventor proud as I did not let it slide. I debated heatedly about it throughout the ride home. The nagging instructor would have been impressed. Just to get me to keep shut, he had to give me the aggrieved 20 naira.

However, he has started rubbing off on me(like a bad habit) as I have begun to grease the right palms and paying for services that were originally my entitlement: paying guards for parking spaces at wedding, tipping the servers at wedding so they serve you all the dishes available at the function, tipping police men when you pass the wrong lane, tipping my sister to help bring stuff for me from home to the office, giving recharge cards to people I may need their help few days before asking, then I ask for the assistance 2 days later and they are happy to deliver, tipping the layabouts on certain streets to watch over the car while I attend a function that did not deem it fit to provide parking space. I have even gone further to be tipping Hubby himself with certain entitlements so as to receive some entitlement that I should ordinarily just demand for. (Take your mind out of the gutter folks)

And what I find amazing is that no matter the level of enlightenment, exposure, education, the reaper of the tip is usually happy to have been considered for such offer and shows effusive appreciation to the sower of such by offering more and even better service than expected. 

It goes to show that Nigeria is in a far deeper trouble than we think. I even heard that some restaurants/hotels now include tips as part of the total bill. Gradually, we are adopting norms that we once frowned upon. It is now an expected part of service from the service provider if you really want to get the job done. It is so sickening and condescending that the reapers are not even aware. You cannot begin to imagine the level of this porousness until you experience it first-hand. 

Corruption on the other hand is a foregone conclusion as it has parked its motherboard ship in the shores of Nigeria and I doubt it will be leaving any time soon. Just the other day while going to the, oh shoot! My boss just walked in. And he is not smiling.

Some other time folks….

Over & out!