My Inconvenience 

I was sitting in front of my date and thinking, ‘Now what have you gotten yourself into?’ 

Earlier, when the menu list was brought to the table, I chose beef, moin-moin and salad. I liked it because it seemed like a healthy choice. Not the beef though. I chose the beef to not seem too prude and uptight in my ways. Dangerous beef eh?

Just before the food was served I excused myself to use the restroom and when I returned, the food was served. Awesome amazing food. But one little problem – different bits of the beef got stuck in different parts of my teeth. 

I could excuse myself to the restroom again but I was nervous and thought it’d look like I had a running stomach. So I decided to use the tongue wrestle method. 

Smiling at him as he spoke, I began to pull back the bits of meat from my teeth with my tongue and subdued air pressure; careful not to make any sounds. I succeeded in pulling some out and swallowing them. Whenever I wanted to talk to him, I would pause my activity and talk with panache. 

I was making fast progress. I ran my tongue round my set of teeth and felt relief – almost all the bits had gone. All but one, at the far end of my mouth. My molar? 

I kept trying but I felt like it was already looking obvious. I thought how oblivious my date was to this crazy inconvenience I was experiencing. My tongue was aching and salivating from all the pressure I had put in it. So I decided to just stop. Let him think I’m purging, I thought. 
So I said with a smile, ‘Dare, can I please be excused for a moment?’ 

I only just met him two weeks earlier (we had met after then twice) and I thought he was a reasonable young man. His head was transparent as I could read his thoughts and interprete his actions, but he was fairly reasonable.  He was a typical good guy; would say please, sorry, excuse me, bless you, thank you, you’re welcome; he would call you morning, noon and evening but not in a you’re-being-disturbed manner; he would open doors and pull chairs for you; he would be shy when you paid him a compliment and so one.  Although those are perfect examples of a stewing Yoruba demon, I enjoyed the illusion and awaited his grand revelation.

So, it was to my great shock when he began to laugh gently. ‘Why are you laughing?’ I asked. 

‘Well, you don’t have to go all the way to the restroom to do that.’ Then he dipped his hand into his pocket and produced a flat small plastic case. He opened it and further produced a plastic toothpick with had a string of floss attached to one side. He offered it to me and said, ‘See. You would just cover your mouth elegantly and pretend as if anybody not picking their teeth like you are is too uncool. All the troubles you went through to get the others out were not worth it. And even at that, I was tempted to join you because you made it look effortlessly beautiful – as you did to your make up, to your outfit tonight and to the way you laugh. Oh… and most importantly, as God did to you’ 

I stood up and went to the restroom. I’m too old for these Yoruba boys that wear black and white agbadas on Saturdays. Hian!