The following is something I wrote last year. Late last month, I still hadn’t found something that I could publish and I got the idea of trying to republish something that I’ve written in the past with some additional commentary. This was originally published on Medium and here I am republishing it on Substack. Yay! :|
The commentaries will be made by the use of footnotes.
If you’re wondering what the title is all about, panic not. It was the seventh bus I was entering on that bloody damn day. The man is explained in the piece.
Here goes the piece.
Today is the third of February, 2022. The 34th day of the year. I’m currently on my way home as at the time I’m1 writing this.
I got this idea from an article I read recently to write about people I come across in buses2. I'll try to come up with a story given all I know about them.
I haven't met anyone interesting up until now. There'll be no coming up with a fictional story for the interesting man I just met. What he does in this bus is already enough.3
He talks about the medicine he sells that he'll like people in the bus to buy.
The first one he advertises is a drug that helps you with worms. He talked about parasites at some point in relation to the drug. To further convince people, he suggests they google the term.4
The second drug is for eye sight. I consider the thought of buying one for S but I’m not convinced that it works at all. He says it helps with all sorts of eye defects.5
There's something that writing forces you to do most especially when you're writing about actual people, it forces you to really pay attention, to observe.6 If I wasn't writing, there's no way I could have been able to tell if it—the second item in the queue that he advertises—was a tablet or a powder. It's a powder.
The third product he talks about isn’t a tablet or a powder, it’s actually a liquid. Guess what this liquid does? It should be easy to guess. It’s for teeth. He talks about how this product will help you with any tooth problems that you’re having. After that, he talks about how this can also be used as an ear drop.7 To be honest, I’m a little bit intrigued. My mum has been complaining lately about tooth problems, I’ve recommended she goes sees the dentist8 but she doesn’t have the time so I consider getting one for her which I actually did. As I suspected, there’s no NAFDAC registration number which tells us that this hasn’t been tested and approved by the appropriate bodies. I am skeptical about it. Tbh, I don’t really think it’ll work but I’m curious to see the actual results so I’m going to remain open minded. I want to complete the scientific method, experiment and see if the hypothesis is good.9
He brings out a fourth drug, I don't really pay it that much attention because I'm busy writing this.10
That’s it. It ends there. I know, you were expecting a better ending but I don’t know what else could’ve been added.
Sayonara. 🖖🏾11
Big mistake here. I shouldn’t be using “"I’m” twice in one sentence. It should be “am”.
As you can guess, I only did this once. I’ll try to do this sometime in the future. I sure do come across “interesting” people on my regular commutes. I’m trying to think of the last interesting person I came across in a bus. Hmmmm! I can’t come up with anybody. What that probably tells me is that I haven’t been paying much attention to the world around me.
It sure was! LMAO!
Come on, man! You’re the one trying to sell us the drug, it should be your job to explain to us what parasites are and why your drug is so important in fighting them if that’s exactly what it does. Imagine I go to buy a car and in the process of looking around, a salesman is trying to convince me of the particular one am standing in front of. In the process of convincing me, he brings up a term that’s very important to what the car is all about and then he proceeds to ask me to google the term. I wouldn’t take the salesman seriously.
If it actually did, the manufacturer would have won a nobel prize.
Earlier today, I was talking to Susu about how the only thing I’m very comfortable with writing is idea(s) and how people can be very difficult to write about. It might be one of the reasons why I struggle greatly with writing fiction. I remember reading an article where Haruki Murakami gives advice on how to write fiction and one of his suggestions was to observe people.
So that’s weird. I’m only just noticing it. The same drug used for both the ear and teeth. That’s very strange. Usually, what you come across are drugs(eye/ear drops) that are made to work for both the eyes and the ears.
“I’ve recommended that she goes to visit the dentist…” would have been a better sentence.
Which is very important, tbh. The makings of a good scientist. : ) I asked my mum later on if what I got her actually worked. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that it didn’t. :(
Thinking back to this day, it actually felt like taking the minutes of a meeting.
And that’s where it ends. Be very skeptical of things advertised in public transportation, my people. I wanted to be open minded but what was I paid? A bag full of disappointments.