By Debbie Olujobi

Traffic is not always a friend. Driving or being driven can be a pleasurable or tortured experience depending on how smooth the roads are and how fast the car can move. Its even better in a car with all the latest buttons and gizmos. I have a rather unladylike love for cars and speed.

I particularly enjoy driving in those countries with the very wide roads and generous speed limits or in some cases no speed limit at all. My preference would be to be alone in the car with great music and just my thoughts to keep me company. Lagos does not have good or even wide roads but sometime this past week I had the option of driving myself and I had taken it because I thought I could enjoy some me time.

All was going well as I had even burned a playlist of my favourite songs to play through the drive  till my entire existence went from composed to tortured in a manner of minutes. My smooth and rather fast drive had been slowed to a crawl with an unexpected accident involving some commercial buses on my way home. The crawl became a standstill and I was still trying to remain upbeat when I started feeling pains intermittently in my belly.

The true contents of a person’s character is only truly obvious in times of pain or aggravation and I must confess that my language was foul to say the least when it dawned on me that nature had chosen 3rd mainland bridge to give me a running stomach.

I swore for a few minutes; releasing expletives that should not be thought of, talk less of spoken out loud. I was many degrees of uncomfortable and it bothered on pain and was open to any crazy idea that popped into my head. It started with releasing all offending buttons in the mid region, then I began to do all the squirming and wriggling I could without loosing control of the wheel but it didn’t help.

My stomach began to percolate with the fury of coffee that needs to be poured urgently! I am sure no one is alien to the sensations that begin as a rumble in the mid region, or better still an earthquake. In no time at all, I began to sweat furiously and even my ankles began to throb!! For some reason, I decided to take off my scarf, very quickly my wrist watch followed and finally even my earrings were yanked off. It seemed that removing all non essential things would relieve me of my torture  but no way!!!

It was turning to be the worst drive of my life and I knew I was desperate when I happened to look to my left and saw the shanty houses built on the water ways and was actually jealous of the small child defecating without a care in the world into the water. To be honest, if there was a way to abandon my car and run for some comfort in some place I may have tried it but there was only water to my left and water to my right.

I was stuck between cars that actually had their engines switched off as the traffic was not moving an inch. I have been in this position more than once and I have concluded that the greatest and simplest pleasure was sitting on the throne(toilet), newspaper in hand and emptying one’s bowels! In fact I developed confidence in public speaking by simply imagining someone that intimidated me humbled and tortured by a running stomach.

I couldn’t take any call or even make one as my mind was focussed on breathing exercises  that I prayed would prevent a cataclysmic meltdown in my innocent car; I didn’t dare fart in case of an accidental discharge. It felt like hours but slowly but surely the traffic started moving. When I looked at my watch it had been just over 40 minutes  and within another 10 I was pulling into my drive.

A running stomach is a truly humbling experience and I must have walked like a pregnant crab to get into my house. The experience behind the door of the loo is best unimagined and unspoken but I don’t know whether the relief I enjoyed thereafter can ever be quantified!!

I do my best to be composed and I am often accused of taking life too seriously but nature’s call put away all refinement and philosophies! I had the same need that unifies us all in a most guttural and primitive manner. Days later I still remain convinced that the entry and exit of food in the body are life’s simplest pleasures. They are both necessary but equally urgent activities that can ruffle the smoothest feathers. Granted I enjoy the entry more than the exit but one is just as pleasurable as the other.