That’s one lesson I’d learnt after being at enough Yoruba weddings. If the couple were not four hours late, you better be grateful.
And I was. In fact, I gave them a mental pass mark. On one hand for their early arrival and on the other because, just as the couple and its squads entered with all the fanfare, jollof rice and its divine smell followed.
Let the party begin as the Lord intended, I thought to myself as I fiddled with my phone, trying to be as cool as possible.
You know how you have to be composed while food is being served at these things so you won’t look like you are actually interested in their food. Smh.
20 minutes after and the smell of jollof had well and truly filled the whole room but none was coming my way. So I stylishly looked around me.
People of God, food was flowing everywhere around me o. Jollof was being murdered en-masse, beer and juice and other drinks were being used to flush the crushed grains further down but I was getting none of the action.
Another look around and I realized what the problem was – I had somehow managed to sit myself in the uncool side of the setting.
Oh my Jesus.
Uncool kids
You know all those cool kids in American high school movies always getting their way and getting away with literally anything? Exactly!
My table was the opposite of that. We were three. An elderly man and one woman who looked like she gatecrashed completed the miserable trio.
We were three at a table meant for eight. Quiet, looking morose and – it actually still breaks my heart to admit this part – very, very hungry.
Yet there was no food coming from anywhere. And it was increasingly looking like none would.
For some reason, it was only the tables where groups of people were gisting that had food. Banter was alive and gist was just flowing. So did food and drinks there.
The loudmouthed and really pretty babes who all wore matching outfits to our right had it all. I hungrily eyed a petite one and somehow our eyes met and held for the briefest moment.
Wait, lemme eat first, I thought and filed the thought of getting her number to a part of my worried mind.
The yuppy mummies directly in front of us had loads of food as well – as in, everything.
Those ones bullied the servers to get most of the food anyway; literally dragging the servers by the clothes whenever they passed till everyone at their table was served everything they wanted.
Then I realized that’s the thing about these Yoruba weddings and maybe about servers – you have to call their attention most times and it is the force with which you call them that they respond to.
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