Blessings in disguise are easily one of the best things to happen to people. They just sneak into your life when you least expect it, and over time, they turn into something so good and beautiful. Makes you grateful for whatever trouble and suffering you had to endure as a result.
It’s safe to assume that many of us have found ourselves in such situations over the years. At least at one time or the other, we have been blessed in a way that we never expected. Thereby turning what should have been a bad thing into something good and beautiful. And I’m no different.
Some people come into our lives to serve one purpose and that’s all they’ll ever do. The moment they’re done with that, they move on because they were never meant to be with us in the long run. The purpose could be bad, just as well as it could be good. The thing is that once it’s done, nature will have no reason to keep them with you so they’ll gradually pull away.
However, in the time leading to that definitive moment, they can be anything at all. Good, bad, just something enough to keep them on your radar until they can fulfill their purpose in your life. And for me, I had an encounter with such a person, and believe me when I say this, it was not a good kind.
The guy used to live in my area, back in Lagos. At first, we were just strangers, but you know how when you keep seeing the same face over and over, you eventually start to greet each other because you can recognize yourselves? Yeah, that’s how it was for us. We didn’t have any mutual friends or anything, we simply gravitated toward each other.
The time we bonded was over a rude trader. We went to buy something from the same shop and the woman was nonchalant, simply watching a movie on her phone and telling us to wait for her sister to come. At first, we believed maybe something was wrong with her for which she couldn’t get up to answer us. However, to our shock, we saw her get up and make her way to the deep freezer where she pulled out a soft drink for herself. When we demanded that she answer us, she said it was her sister’s shop and we had to wait.
What we needed to buy was pretty simple, just hand it over and take the money. I couldn’t wait, and neither could the guy. That was how we walked out of the shop and as we went to another shop, we talked. Along the way, the bond was formed. And from then, we became friends. We no longer just said hi to each other when we bumped into each other on the road, instead, we stopped and had conversations.
One day, he approached me and asked for my help. Before now, I already told him about how handy I could be when it came to appliances. Although at the time, the only thing I had actually been handy with was sockets and switches, however, motivational speakers had me believing I was handy with so much more. Lol. And that was how I communicated it to him.
He believed me. He told me one time that he got some ceiling fans and needed help installing them. I agreed to help him. Installing a ceiling fan is not difficult at all, as long as you have the manual. I went to his place and this guy not only bought a ceiling fan, he also bought a GoTV decoder, a new flat-screen TV, and some other gizmos. It was a feat, yeah but all these things had to be installed and that would take a lot of time. I came to his house believing it was only for the fan.
But then, I stayed and chose to help him. Every single thing I did there that day, I did it for the first time. Installing the fans, pinning the TV on the wall, assembling the GoTV antenna and setting it up for use, and even setting up his sound system. It’s all pretty easy, you just have to be patient enough to go through the manual carefully. As easy as it is though, it was a lot of work. We spent hours doing it and by the end of the day, I was sweaty and dirty.
When it was over, everything worked perfectly. We watched TV for a while, and the only form of refreshment he gave me was pure water to drink. This hurt my feelings because I spent so much time doing this, I worked on it like they were my gadgets. Now, he was my guy, I didn’t expect him to pay me or anything. But he was supposed to show appreciation, even if it was food. He could give me food to eat or even N1k would have gone far.
And I told him straight up, that after everything I did for him, I deserved more than just pure water. If I refused to do that, he would have had to hire someone and they would have charged him nothing less than 7k. He had to give me something even if it was to buy soft drinks. He assured me that he knew all that, he then said he had done so much spending and was short on cash, but he would see me later. Lamba!
I left that day, and I and the guy never met again. We saw each other on the street, but our conversations became forced and eventually, we stopped saying even hi to each other. Back to where we started. And I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to be with someone who didn’t know how to appreciate the good done to him.
As luck would have it, about a month later, I was walking down an adjacent street of mine when I saw an old man struggling with his mounted GoTV antenna. I know the man very well and so I approached him to help. He said it wasn’t receiving a signal anymore, and he had turned it all the way but it wasn’t working. I studied it and noticed that the cord was not properly fastened to the antenna which I fixed. I also helped him reset the antenna and turned it away from the trees so he could get a better signal. The man was impressed and told me to take anything from his shop, I settled for Indomie Hungry man size and two eggs. However, I also told him that he could tell his friends about me. And I listed out everything I did at my friend’s house.
From this man, I was able to make around 15-20k just from installing gadgets, mounting antennas, and fixing TVs to the walls. After the old man, I started charging for my service. It wasn’t exorbitant because I didn’t need the money. The gigs were far apart and I was a bit scared to be honest because I was handling new things and I knew that any slip could mean huge trouble for me. I was careful though, extremely careful. And I never ruined anyone’s gadgets.
I never considered it as work, because as a source of income, it was extremely unreliable. But I still made a lot of money from it and now it might seem small, but I used it to cause small trouble back then. And all this would not have been possible if I hadn’t done that act for my friend. After we stopped talking, I was left with regret for doing that, because I felt like he just used me. But in the end, it only made me realize just how skillful I was when it came to handling gadgets and that brought me some cool cash.
We still don’t talk. Next time I go to Lagos, if I see him on the road I’ll still pretend he’s invisible. Despite the blessing that came from our encounter, I still can’t be with someone like him who will so easily use someone. Because if I turn the other cheek now, in the future he’s only going to do much worse. So, good riddance to bad rubbish!
