Teaching A Car A Lesson: Trouble

OK, get in.  Yes Boss. Just you wait until we get home and see how I will deal with you.   Ma a da sharia fun o! You don’t know the trouble you are in. With that he gave the body of the car a kick that immediately registered as a dent that would cost thousands of naira to repair.  The chauffeur got behind the driving wheel of the Mercedes Benz 300 E and began to pilot the car towards the mansion of the Boss. The chauffeur knew that his Boss was fuming. He was not sure why he was angry but angry he was. His anger was set against the Merc 300 E, usually his favourite Mercedes.  Remember Boss has so many other Mercedes Benzes, some with and others without protective armour like that animal that sends bullets reckochetting from its plate skin. Yet, he was angry, no, livid, against the Mercedes 300 E. And he felt like begging the Boss to forgive the car. After all, it was only a car, a thoughtless, witless car, incapable of realizing how important it was as a possession of its master.

Please forgive it Boss. Forgive it for what? How can I forgive it after the way and manner it has disgraced my name, my honour and my legacy? This legacy thing is a recent thing in Nigerian politics. Yet, when you come to look at it the main legacy around is illegalities, impunities and billions of foreign currency overseas. But Boss, persisted the chauffeur, this is your favourite Merc. It is also the family`s favourite means of circulation. And you know Boss that Monday Madam prefers it to any other of the more luxurious cars. So also the various days’ madams.

I don’t care, shouts the Boss. A car that has no respect for me as its owner does not deserve respect now. Can you imagine it? To be hi-jacked by a bunch of kids wielding toy guns, how shameful can that be? And to have it reported that a troop of Nigerian Police had to come and rescue my car from these amateur car hi-jackers! And the car is stupid enough to just sit there waiting to be rescued! Can you imagine that? Why couldn’t this car realise that it was not just a car but my car, me, senator, chief, future…  Please Boss we don’t know who might be listening… I don’t care; I’m going to show this car today that it would never have another chance to disgrace me! If it had no respect for itself, at least it could have had respect for its owner and fought off the idiots who attacked it with toy guns.

As soon as they were getting near the house, the boss asked the chauffeur to park the Merc 300 E out in the field, far from the house. This meant that the Boss was determined to shame the Merc 300 E publicly. Please Boss, reprimand the car inside the house. Please not in the public, in the parking lot, in front of all the other cars not only here at home but the thousands of others that have been jealosying the Merc 300 E all this time. The Boss was no longer listening. As soon as the chauffeur had parked the Merc 300 E in the middle of nowhere, the Boss asked him to go and bring the big hammer.

The Merc 300 E loves its tainted windows. It even thinks that the other cars are envious of its specially tainted windows. So, those are the first things that the Boss was going to smash to nonsense. So, when the chauffeur brought the hammer, Boss began from the rear windows. He landed the hammer on the rear window. It crushed the glass but the glass did not scatter, it merely gave way like a piece of plastic, fighting back. It had been treated with special treatment to prevent smash and grab thieves. No matter. The Boss went round the car smashing the tainted windows until everything was destroyed. But the anger of the Boss was still not quenched. I can’t believe it, he kept saying, such an ungrateful and unrespectful car! Get me the iron lashes.

There were in all ten-iron lashes. The Boss took one and flogged the body of the Merc 300 E until his arms pained him. Then he brought the area boys he had hired for the job to take over the flogging of the Merc. At first the area boys were unwilling to flog the Merc. The Boss called the non-area boys he had called to flog the area boys who were refusing to flog the Merc to go to work. Very soon everybody was flogging the Merc and in no time at all, its navy green bodywork was reduced to rubbish. Now, said the Boss, let’s slash the tyres. Machetes were brought out and the expensive tyres of the Merc were attacked to the burst of air and rubber and iron.

Finally, the Boss brought out a box of matches. He opened the petrol tank and was going to ignite a match and place it in the tank when the chauffeur and the area boys and the non area boys fell on their bellies begging the Boss not to do it because they were sure that the car had learnt its lesson and would never allow anyone to steal it ever again, etc, etc. But no. The Boss lit the match and placed it in the petrol tank and blew everybody up. Teaching a car a lesson it will never forget.