Dinner and Dream

After a long day at work, I decided to wait for traffic to subside on the third mainland bridge before heading home. I had to stay back at the office to gist about sports, politics, business, and every other matter that could keep me engaged for as long as possible. The sole aim was to avoid the dreaded Lagos traffic that can stir up unholy anger and unwanted quarrels inside you. After about 2 hours of successfully waiting for other commuters to excuse me on the road, I headed home.

As expected, I got home at about 11:05 pm. But as a typical Ibadan man, my wife had prepared hot Amala and Efo Riro (Vegetable soup) for dinner. Even though I thought of the diet rules that say ‘do not eat heavy foods such as Amala, Eba, Fufu and the likes at times beyond 7:00 pm’; I just accepted my fate that I cannot come and kill myself because of one diet principle or because I live in Lagos. I am hungry and I must eat.

I settled with my dinner of Amala Ibadan and Efo Riro garnished with smoked fish and assorted meats. I finished the food leaving no stone unturned. That dinner was such that invoked my spirit to bless my darling wife. I said in a calm tone, “God bless you, my beautiful wife”. As I sat on the chair to cool off a bit while staring at the TV set, I slept off. This little deep sleep took about an hour and thirty minutes.

In that sleep that seemed short, I fell deep into dreamland. I dreamt that I was in a classroom setting and a lecturer walked in to serve us examination papers. In that dream, I had full consciousness of my career status and the fact that I should not be writing examinations at this point in my life. I could feel in that dream that something was so off and I really wished to snap out of it at once.

Incidentally, the dream dragged on until examination question papers were served and we were told about the various examination hall rules as usual. A man was standing in front of the hall serving the papers and at the same time reciting “no cheating, no copying, face your work”. I am like what’re all these that I have left behind several years ago? What again am I doing in this serious academic environment, what on earth am I looking for? Who did I offend that will not just overlook the offense instead of making me sit for an exam as a sign of retaliation? I kept on musing about these words until I thought clearly that it must definitely be a dream.

So I decided to redirect my attention toward waking up from the dream. That little experience sent many waves down my nerves. I felt so unprepared and just like a lot was at stake. Finally, I woke up and thanked God I had escaped the pressure.

To be continued in the next post. You can read more about my journey to LBS and my experiences in my MBA program so far.