Yesterday I was driving past Oshodi Express at about 6pm when I looked across the road to the opposite lane and my eyes caught a man whom I suspect was, from his looks, one of those boys also known as 'Agberos' who collect money from every commercial bus that ply the route.
This time, he wasn't running after any of the buses, rather, he laid on the culvert looking well balanced with his hands on the chest and was sleeping peacefully away inspite of all the heavy noise around the very busy Oshodi without a care in the world whether any vehicle could lose its brakes/control and ram into him while he slept.
The picture of the 'sleeping man' once again reminded me of the saying that 'one cannot cheat nature', some things such as sleep are so necessary that once they SERIOUSLY come calling, there's nothing anyone can do to stop them. When you are sleepy and tired, no one will need to compel you before you go Zzzzzzzing away.
I recall an incident from a couple of years back. To say I was tired on this day would be putting it mildly as I was VERY tired and so fagged out as an outcome of a very tedious week at work. I had this young man, who was also a colleague with me in the car and after driving for nearly an hour, we got stuck in traffic and while we waited for traffic to ease out, I put my head on the steering for a quick rest but slept off and the next thing, I was already dreaming when I woke up to blaring horns and my colleague nudging saying "madam, madam, what are you doing?". Apparently before the nudge, he had tried to wake me up for a bit by calling out to me as soon as the cars ahead of us moved. It was the blaring of horns from the cars
behind us that made him to start nudging when I didn't respond to his call. I woke up with a start and immediately moved the car but not without noticing the look on his face as though he was scared that I may have passed out when I didn't respond early enough. What if I was alone in the car? From that day, I swore never to drive when tired but to just stay somewhere and take at least a five/ten minutes nap before hitting the road. Every other thing can wait because if anything happens, the world will still go on without you.
Speaking about things waiting until it is the right time to do them, the other day it was reported that Kiss Daniel sent out a tweet reminding everyone not to use the phone while driving as he recently escaped getting hurt in an accident which occurred while he was sending messages and driving at the same time.When I heard the report, I laughed because at this stage we are in, no one needs to be told that it is very WRONG to drive and chat. Even a toddler knows it is wrong.
Stay safe, sleep when tired, while driving use your hands-free, park before taking that call or else ignore those calls as they can all wait!
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