I fought for my food.

I know this title is quite the opposite of my previous post, where I let my lunch go almost every school day.

If you read my previous post, you would be confused as to why a girl who can give up her lunch would fight over food. I am as surprised as you are, but this happened.

I was two or three years old. I definitely cannot remember any part of the story, but my mum, aunt and cousins told me it happened, so it did happen. We were served dinner, it was swallow and soup, and you know how in most Nigerian homes, the older folks sit on the sofa and the kids sit on the floor in the sitting room. That is the setting we had in my grandmother's home where this event happened. My grandmother was eating, and my cousin and I sat on the carpet in some corner, eating as well.

Suddenly, my cousin picked my meat (it must have been beef), and my grandmother called out to my mother, who was in the kitchen, to come to see her kids. In that split second, before my mother arrived, I served justice.

Young Timi dipped her fingers in the soup and aimed straight for her cousin's eyes. My cousin could not continue the trip from my plate to her mouth, and so the meat fell from her hand the moment my hand reached her eyes. How sad is that? Timi picked her meat, ignoring her cousin's scream of pain. 

I sincerely do not have any memory of this. Well, it's not like anyone can remember what they did when they were two. However, I still feel embarrassed and bad every time I hear this story from my folks. I am sorry, cousin. I was fighting for what was mine, my meat.

It is silly that while fighting for some piece of meat, I almost got someone's e’s eyes, and so it is. We fight for little things and ignore the greater things we could lose in the real world.

I hope you learn a thing or two from this story. Sometimes, you have to let the meat go to keep the eye.

Originally published on 1/23/2020 at 3:41 PM.