Thank You for Coming/ Consolation Prize

Growing up, and I'm referring from quite an early age, I was familiar with "thank you for coming" gifts. As a child, it was what you got when an older relative visit or when you were the visitor. It was usually money that was handed out. Some you say, "Have this for you and your siblings". That's when you contemplate if you should let them know, not to mention parents.

A friend of mine had a visitor from the United States, he had been there for over a decade and decided to return to Nigeria for good. As he was taking his leave, he decided to share his finacial blessing and gave my friend his siblings cash ranging from ₦150 to ₦200 all in ₦50 denomination. The issue with it was the youngest child in the house was in the university and this was a period the best ₦200 could do was 10 minutes call card. Maybe he assumed ₦50 had the same value as $50. One of 'em kindly place his 'donation' into an envelope and gave him before he left. The man received his own thank you for coming gift.

Things have changed now, I don't see anyone that could give me thanks for coming gift. Instead people demand especially girls. If you step into Stamford Bridge you would probably compare it to a hotel room. Apart from that being my taste: all you see is the bed and the only thing you could hold is a pillow. With time I learnt it had it's advantages...

When girls come over they love leaving with a thanks for coming gift or a consolation prize. I mean, a girl comes over for a match and she expects to leave with something synonymous with the match ball for her performance. The point is she doesn't want to leave empty handed. I didn't get that quite early, girls come over and I would offer magazines to read. They always end up 'borrowing' it never to return it. The same thing began to happen to my deodorant collection. Girls believe they earned one. They jokingly pick one and put it in their Sport Billy bag that had everything. That's why I loved it when I cleared everything, there was no souvenir a girl to take as a consolation prize. But I learnt that was only an assumption.

A chic came over and she wanted to leave with my sexy lamp. Should I begin to hide lamps now? Another asked for my key holder when there was nothing she could part with. A few of them open my wallet for anything they could find OR they asked if I had call credit to call someone and from the way the conversation would go, it becomes obvious they hadn't spoken in a while. All I hear is, "So you've forgotten me". The point is they just want to leave with something.

I'm starting to believe it was embedded in their DNA to take anything to make a guy 'lesser' than they came, even if it was only by ₦1.