ASK DOT EFEM

ASK DOT EFEM

I am TheVunderkind. A lover without a lover, and an all-round nice guy. Hence, I finish last. Which isn’t a bad thing, if you know what I mean. Follow on twitter @TheVunderkind.

DISCLAIMER: One, there is no shred of seriousness in this post. If you are the kind of person who isn’t interested in reading something unless it’s a thesis on Quantum Physics or contains words like cornucopia and malodorous, eeyah. I’m really sorry. Two: The writer is a nice person, and any resemblance to any person dead or alive was obviously not intentional.
Really. Seriously.
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Once upon a time, in a world not so far away and governed by IP addresses and Smartphones, there lived a girl called Efemuna. This handle, which her parents had so generously bequeathed upon her seven days after she poked her head from that place, had since assumed various transfigurations.

You see, Efemuna among friends was referred to as simply Efe, but when she found herself in the pleasantly surprising company of a (rich) handsome guy with (wealth) a sense of humor and (money) a bright future, she suddenly became “Effy,” a name which, to the author, sounds like the last words of a dying ostrich (hypothetically, of course. Aforementioned author has had no cause to see an ostrich , whether dead or alive and seeing as the author hasn’t visited the zoo and rarely watches National Geographic, the author is unlikely to have a papyrus stashed somewhere documenting the final words of a deceased ostrich. Sometimes these disclaimers are necessary. Anybody can sue nowadays, it seems.)

Efemuna on Twitter went by the handle @Violet_Eph. This handle, along with a strategically placed bosom (not hers) gained her five thousand followers within a few months of joining the website. At this juncture, you may be curious as to whether this author is on Twitter, and as to his follower count. The answer, my friend is blowing in the wind. The author is without bosom.

There is one final inclusion on the nomenclatural discourse: Efemuna, at home, was often summoned by a curt “Efem,” by her parents, siblings, visitors and the street’s black-lip-licking, kolanut chewing and catcalling specimens of the human race. As a matter of fact, everyone who knew Efemuna’s family was bound to ask,

“How Efem sef? She don stop to dey buy salt for my hand.”

The people of Ajamimogha considered it hurtful and a sign of betrayal if you bypassed your regular ‘customer’ to trek a few kiosks down to buy an item, even if the new kiosk stocked them for cheaper. None of Efemuna’s friends on Twitter knew this of course, because @Violet_Eph always tweeted

“Ugh, snow again #TeamNoSchoolToday.”

But we know now. The truth has set us free. We shall refer her by her family name for the rest of this story. A random peace-hating citizen of the Twittezenry (so, female then?) picked up her Smartphone and caused civil unrest. The words stirred agitation within the Twousehold as men and women alike began to lose sleep and the number of “O”s within subsequent LOOOOOOOLs shortened dramatically. The troublemaker had tweeted without remorse,

“Yay. Eighteen days to Valentine,” and even had the indiscretion to add a smiley face at the end: (^_^)

Amidst the fear and uncertainty (wherein certain boys’ data mysteriously ‘expired’ and several others suddenly had “pressing exams, fam, idk when I will be back.”), @Violet_Eph set finger to screen and tweeted.

“Ugh. Three inches of snowwww. Can’t turn up. Guys, ask me a question: ask.fm/Violet_Eph.”
Sahara guys, as always, were on the Timeline (hehe. Cute joke there. Sahara guys. Like, Sahara, you know? No water. So they are thirsty. Get it? Thirsty guys? Oh, screw you too then. It was funny to me. I had to laugh for six minutes before I could return to continue this story.

Soon, @Violet_Eph had gotten her first question: “u’re cute.”
Her reply was “thanks”

The next question from another dangerously desiccated tweep was “be my valentine?”

Efem paused from cleaning the toilet bowl to wipe sweat from her moustache as she ignored her mother’s behest to go pluck some ugwu from the backyard. Coodisbee forreal? Asked Efem’s mind. Coodibee dat some1 izz about to take me out for valz dae? (Yes, her mind thought in retardese text, which might seem like a problem to some people, until we realize that Efem was one of those “OMG I can’t” people who simply cannot.)
Pretending to be playing along (when her mind don wear eyeglass sit for front seat serious for the matter), she wrote,

“LOL. Nah.”

At this point, folks had begun to retweet into several timelines, with the occasional p****-straddler (they told me d***rider was too offensive, sorry) adding in a manual retweet, “Lord, that curve.”

“Behold, I come quickly,” said the premature ejaculator. (No idea why that has been added. The author is really distracted and may be battling similar issues in his bedsheet squeezing sessions. Moving on.)

Efem waited a tense minute in front of the ugwu tree before her ‘asker’ asked another question.

“You want this valentine or nah?”

The sweaty woman calculated quickly. If ai sae yel, though her brave brain, he may curve me bak en mai sweg may fall. If ai sae no, iPhone 5 may pass me bai.
She finally decided. She unchecked the “post on twitter” feature on ask.fm and replied, “Of course. I want.” (These women are always very terse. Must be exhausting, typing long expressive sentence.)

To the people on the TL, @Violet_Eph had just curved someone on the TL and life was back to normal as conversation ranged from catfishing to cooking soup with N200 and someone piped up “I love to eat ass,” after which he was quickly buried by attackers and yanshnomnom voltrons alike.

Meanwhile…

Efem leaned against the pestle as the pounded yam began to form seed. Clackity-clackity she went on her Tecno (Ssshh, it’s an iPhone if anyone asks. Efem has been careful not to take any screenshots.)

“Where are you?” asked her mysterious man.

“Houston, Texas. Schooling. You?”

By the time she oversalted the soup and added periwinkle to the white rice, her ‘asker’ had asked another question on ask.fm.

“Ah. Too bad. I’m in Nigeria.”

“Where?” Efem asked, her brain glancing furtively about looking for a way to make good the situation.

“Abuja.”

“Eyyy, I’m gonna be in Abuja next week (^_^) I’m visitinggggggg.”

(“LOL!” Says the writer)

The base of the pot had enthusiastically turned to shoe polish by this time and the pounded yam had become famous inside the mortar.

“K.”
She replied “?”

He responded. “Let’s see then. Can you lodge for two nights at mine? Sheraton.”

Efem moaned and her mother asked from the sitting room (where the man had just died in today’s episode of “Super Story”) “Wetin?” and she said “I nack my hand for door,” and her mother said “na so you go dey nack hand for door when you marry?”

“Ok.” Efem was gonna play this one cool, even though her mind was stroking its beards in joy. “Whenever I’m free, amma holler. Drop your number. I’ll call when I land.”

“07046568343. Ttyl soon, bae :*”

“You too, sweetie. :*”

And Efem quickly tweeted, “Ugh. Some Americans can be soooo annoying. This old man just parked in my spot!” (and some dudes replied with “Sorry b” but let’s not go into that right now.)
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Nnamdi flipped the last mai shayi (a wrongly used term for commercially prepared bread-and-egg) and collected his N200 from the customer. His smartphone, which was still lighted up from recent use, had its browser still pointed to the Ask.fm page.