It all started when...

It all started during Christmas season, when my mum brought some hens home. No, it wasn’t the type you killed to celebrate Christmas - she bought these chickens at a giveaway price, off people who rear them to lay eggs, and felt they had made enough money from them.

These chickens did a good job of laying all the eggs we boiled and used in the Ofada rice sauce we served at my mum’s birthday at the end of the year.

After then, they kept laying. The problem is we are a very small family. My mum, in her usual giving manner, then started a new project – Project ‘Feed my friends eight eggs each’. My mum started giving eggs to everyone, and the eggs in the kitchen gradually reduced by the day.

As for me, my diet changed. I started eating one or two eggs almost every day, I even became worried that my mum’s Project eight eggs would shorten my egg ration. Sometimes, I would wake up when the house was empty, go to the kitchen, and find that my mum had emptied the crate of eggs. In my worry, I would then go down to the chicken cage, and find about eleven eggs, and with relief, eat about two of them. From my little knowledge of eggs and cholesterol, I guessed a fully developed adult shouldn’t be doing what I was doing, but I felt I should just indulge. As a child, my siblings and I were never allowed to indulge in anything. Absolutely nothing, wait a minute, the only thing we had in excess was cane and punishment. So this was like a first time for me.

In my house, we always buy our food in bulk, like grains in sacks, and pepper in baskets, but never eggs. So this was the first time I was just seeing eggs idle in the kitchen all the time. I work from home, so I am always the only one at home almost all day, until late in the evening when others start getting back. I was therefore the only one that was subject to the temptation of eating loads of eggs – the eggs stared at no one but me.

So I felt, “Wharraheck, lemme just indulge now, after all, these chickens would stop laying eggs one day, and I would return to my two eggs a week routine.” The problem is my issues did not want to wait for the chickens to stop laying eggs before they started surfacing.

The first thing I noticed was intense migraine. I was and still am not sure whether I can link this directly to the eggs, but I sure could not say my grandmother was the one ‘doing me’ from the village, because she died last year, although she might have buried the jazz under the ground somewhere, and somebody might have chosen that spot to pound yam every day, and the more they pound the yam, the more ferocious the migraine. As there was no way to link this to the eggs, I kept eating them.

One day, I then looked at my laps, and they looked bigger. I was like “wow, I am adding weight again. 2013 is indeed my year of restoration and bigger things. All the hips and weight I lost in 2012 is now being restored to me. God is indeed good.” After thinking this way, I quickly went online to check the link between excess eggs and growing fat – I saw none. So I kept eating the eggs.

The next thing was that I started noticing irregularities in my digestive system, my throat felt like there was a big stick in it, the upper part of my stomach was painful, I stopped feeling hungry even till late in the afternoon. If not for the water therapy I usually do every morning, I am sure this problem would have surfaced earlier than it did. At this point, I knew there was a problem. It sure couldn’t be my grandmother’s jazz, she is dead, for heaven’s sake. And in no way could pounding on the jazz affect my whole digestive system. But I still wasn’t sure, so I kept eating the eggs.

Later that day, things got worse. Whenever I got up from the seat I worked from, I noticed my legs were bigger, and harder. It was later at night that I realised that blood was not circulating in my legs. So all the while I had been deceiving myself that I was adding weight, I was actually swelling. Gosh, adding weight is not the same thing as being inflated like a balloon. The last time I had a problem with blood circulation in my legs was when I had an accident three years ago, and my legs were affected. I was also on medication. So I wonder what foreign object was in my body to make it swell. As of this moment, I was finding it hard to eat one meal a day.

So what in the hell could have gone wrong that would affect my blood circulation, digestive system, and give me migraine going into two weeks? Maybe it is the devil because he knew I was to be featured as an author and a Spoken Word artist at a literary event in Ibadan, and that event could be a big break for me. He’s such a destiny-destroyer.

“No @ilola, it’s not the devil. It’s one thing and one thing only – your greed! The fact that you see something doesn’t mean you must have it all the time.”

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So the next morning, I go to the kitchen, eye  the eggs, which by now is increasing massively in numbers, as my mum’s Project eight eggs is over, yet the chickens won’t stop laying eggs, and then I walk away. The upper part of my stomach is so tight and painful that I can no longer do my water therapy.

My literary program is the next day, yet I can hardly walk well without flinching in pain. I cannot stand straight. My head is pounding. My stomach is tight, I can’t eat because I cannot even get hungry. After some medical advice on the internet, I have therefore changed my diet from indomie and egg or bread and egg to oats with banana and groundnut, orange and pawpaw. Damn cholesterol, damn eggs, I have overdosed on you long enough. Because of you, I can’t even enjoy food this year, and it’s just January.

I just look at these eggs. If only I had orders to deliver hair Deep conditioning mix I sell as one of my hair products, at least, the eggs would serve a purpose for me and other ladies out there. As for now, they are just useless.

At this moment, I am still in pain, due to my over-indulgence, and I don’t even have the luxury of blaming my grandmother or the devil.

You see, don’t blame me or my greed, blame the chickens because it all started when my mum brought them to this house.

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