Girls! Girls! Girls!

What were they bringing to the table with their perfectly sculpted brows? An hourglass figure? Hairs worth thousands? Unblemished skin? Devastating outfits, and more? These particular set of girls that move mountains to achieve those pictures, what was their aim? Of what use were these category of women to men? What were the donations of these 'slay queens' to their personal success and those surrounding them?

Nothing! Absolutely nothing!

Their purpose in life to which they were greatly dedicated to was to be a liability to numerous accounts.

Those were my thoughts as I watched a client of my boss chattering about her trip around the world with her 'boyfriend' whom I would prefer to call 'daddy friend'.

"I want ice cream." She whined after an abrupt stop in a long chatter to her friend, whom was on the verge of destroying the cabinet she was sitting on.

I eyed the cabinet again, and it creaked, like it was crying to me for help. Who sits on a cabinet? Apparently, a friend that wanted to give her friend her full attention, or made her think she was.

Sorry, Cabbie, I can't help you because I don't own you. Your owner is standing right....

"What? You had ice-cream before we left na." The friend replied with a slight frown.

The statement crashed my sympathy thoughts, bringing me back to the girl. I would be lying if I said I wasn't expecting such from the girl.

All these girls were branded with these silly attitudes that was a great turn off for me. I always wondered how people around them coped. It is absolutely absurd to want ice- cream after consuming some already, she's just wasting the money she never worked for. And must she even whine about it? Outdoor? Must she force the knowledge of her ridiculous lifestyle on us?

"What are you doing?" She shrieked me back to reality with her high pitched voice.

I followed her gaze to see Oiza, my colleague stretching a piece of hair; a frontal.

"Me?" Oiza asked, pointing her index finger at herself.

"Yes, you, idiot!" She rolled her eyes.
We all exchanged puzzled glances amongst ourselves.

Oiza swallowed saliva as words obviously got stuck in her throat. She looked at our boss wanting her to come to her rescue, which she did.

"I thought you wanted it stretched before I fix that part." Mama B answered. She had been hovering over the girl's head, and now her hand hung mid way in the air with the threaded needle she was sewing with.

"Yes, but I already told you I don't want apprentices touching my hair. I bought that hair for Eight hundred and fifty thousand naira." She yelled.

My eyes bulged out.

"Oooh," Mama B cooed, "I am sorry. I gave it to her so I would be fast. You said you had a place to be in the next five minutes." She explained.

"Yes, but I won't tolerate apprentices touching my hair, your whole company can't even refund me talk more of her." She pointed a finger so close at my boss's eyes.

"Tolu," her friend chimed in a calm voice, "It's okay." A fear-filled voice rather.  That earned her a scoff from Tolu whom balanced back on her seat.

A look at the friend's face, and I could tell she was bothered, but probably silent because she wasn't ready to lose an opportunity. At least, remorse was slightly visible in her, that was something to be thankful for. In some, I see a completely altered mode of reasoning, they've been influenced so much that everything their friend did was right.

Tolu sent Oiza another glare, then Mama B, then a long hiss followed.

That was another thing about these girls. They were fucking rude. In less than five minutes, she called my colleague an idiot, disrespected an elder; my boss, and even called us all wretched. They feel like they possess the world and its inhabitants and could trample on them simply because they had money. It's no wonder their mother-in-law's always hate them.

A moving figure distracted me, it was Mama B signaling to Oiza to drop the frontal. She had resumed with the hair.

Minutes later, Tolu was chattering again like she hadn't been bent on destroying the atmosphere minutes ago. She was telling her friend about how a white man sang her praises, and wanted her at all cost, and how she declined because she wasn't a slut.

Of course she was. A bitch.

I finished the wig I was making and I tiptoed to Mama B to show it to her, she was now fixing the frontal that she finished stretching herself. Mama B gave less attention to me compared to the friend, she just murmured hmms as she circled Tolu.

"Wow," the friend cooed when I was about to start walking away. "Did you make that?"

Was she blind?

"Uhhm.......Uh......Yes." I managed to stutter with a slight smile that disappeared as soon as it came. A definitely absurd question.

"Tolu, check her out, she is good. That wig is so natural." She rushed out.

"Hmmn." Tolu murmured as she eyed me and the wig. She didn't have to move for her gaze to reach me, and I realized I had an extra audience long before I noticed. "How much is it?"

"It is not for sale, it's is for a customer but if you want that same type__" Mama B got cut off.

"Just tell me the price already" Tolu yawned as she dramatically rolled her eyes. Tiny eyes.

Fucking rude!

I couldn't help but imagine me being this rude to Mama B, I would have my head rolling on the floor in seconds. Tolu had mentioned in one of her numerous talks that she was twenty years, same age as I am, but her words and actions seems to be bigger than her. She was the right person if rudeness were to become a being.

I couldn't put all the blame on her, but also on Mama B. She had already made herself a slave to money and wouldn't care to have her pride trampled on because of it, Tolu wasn't a first time customer so she must have already noticed it. Mama B was a typical example of Esau in the Bible who sold his birthrights for porridge, just that hers was for money.

But again, Mama B wasn't sharp with replies. Culturally, a Yoruba descendant, especially a woman has a caustic tongue, quick to pray, curse and insult at the same time, but Mama B's case was an exception. An encounter with my mother and the theory would be proved.

I should have labelled her shy because of that attribute but that wouldn't be accurate when she was being described in some certain situations. Money situations.

"It is just One hundred and twenty thousand naira." Mama B replied Tolu.

My eyes almost popped out but I masked it up before anyone would notice. Mama B bought the weave-on for just thirty thousand naira and she charged the owner sixty thousand naira, so my eyes had to pop out from the new amount.

"I will take it, get another one for the owner." Tolu informed.

If my eyes popped out before, it was nothing compared to the size now. I wanted to feel bad for her, but a part of me believes she deserved it.

"Did you hear her?" Mama B directed to me. From her tone, it was like she had said it before. It wasn't possible that these trivial thoughts had me so immersed that I blanked  out, was it?

I nodded.

"So go and pack it." She shoved me away. It was. Deeply immersed. The shove said it all.

When I returned with the wig sealed in a nylon, Tolu was done with her hair and her friend was packing her stuffs for her. I- phones, lip balm, car keys, Gucci purse, stuffs that would all fit in the purse but for the need to show off had been intentionally left out, and I had to acknowledge it.

Tolu is rich. Or her sponsor is.

Only a rich girl would buy a wig with such quality for that ridiculous amount without as much as a second thought or any type of persuasion.

That was another reason why I questioned the senses in these 'slay queens'. They are just brainless liabilities. A girl with a coconut brain like Tolu is not entitled to a ten thousand naira hair talkmore of the ridiculous amount she said she bought her weave-on.

As she collected her wig from me, my eyes scrutinized her smooth oily skin. I couldn't help but wonder what she rubbed on it. She stood up and once again, I had a full view of her flamboyant red agbada gown that was big on her, and at the same time tight enough to define her curves.

Then new thoughts sets in.

Even after the whole beauty transmission she had undergone, I didn't see that ravishing beauty in her. The natural beauty wasn't there, and one would know that she suffered to get this look. And, she isn't still beautiful, maybe flashy, but not beautiful.

She paid my boss for everything she acquired from her and made to leave. As I watched her sashayed away, I consciously drifted off again, replaying her every action in my head. Deep down, forced to be locked away, underneath those thoughts, laid an entirely different one, which I now allowed to surface because it was time for it.

I would gladly change places with her right now. Her clothes, the hair she made, the car she brought, her style of speaking, infact, everything about her.

Even the coconut brain.

And the sour attitude.

I wasn't surprised I wanted her life considering the fact that I just totally condemn her lifestyle in my thoughts now.

She was someone I wanted to be like but can never be like.

Someone that had the world dying around her.

Someone that could talk back even in the midst of crowds.

Someone that could stand up for herself.

Someone that could be a voice that attracted attention.

Someone that was accepted and adored.

Someone immersed in wealth.

I would even give up my well functioning brain for a coconut brain to be that someone.

Or to be anything else apart from my person.

A person so ugly, poor, shy and oppressed. That's me; Idera Olaiya. That's my person.

Even the name is so ugly and wretched. So not compatible. So displeasing to the ears. Bile-like on the tongue. Even in thoughts.

So I would give up anything to become another person. But unfortunately for me as usual, that would never happen.

My thoughts that condemns these 'slay queens' lifestyles are my best and only consolation in life. They helped me to this stage of my life. Twenty years of hypocrisy  spreaded it arms for more years of likelihood. I was sure I was would be alternating between those different thoughts when it suits because I needed to sniff happiness sometimes. I had to keep on decieving myself for a longer life.

Maybe not deceiving, because I knew what I wanted and what the situation was. It's just the zero percent possibility had driven me nuts that I went with any word I found suitable. Sometimes it was deceiving, another pretending, another fantasizing, another consoling, the list goes on.