How I invented COOL TV.

After my time, or term, at the Police College in Ikeja, it was still felt that my attitude was not quite right. Coming from a conk middle class Yoruba family there was not much in the way of flexibility in the attitude department. Any slight change in attitude was met with concern, suspicion, alarm and of course the trusty belt\whip\shoe routine. Having exhausted herself on the belt\whip\shoe agenda my poor mother had resorted to hiring the junior alfas from the mosque to do the whipping on her behalf. These very same people who were teaching me about the love that Allah had for me would arrive at my home to beat the hell out of me and then have the audacity to sit down to a hearty well prepared meal, bid me adieu and be on their way back to the mosque in time for the evening prayers. Now I cannot read or speak Arabic but I am damn sure in those prayers is stuff about loving your fellow man, treating him like a brother, do onto him etc etc. For sure.

So anyway, after a rash of non acceptable behaviour comprising playing football with my mates after school, coming home late and allowing my grades to drop to C level (or is that sea level) it was decided that the best option for me was to change my environment. Now by this I imagined that I would move from the rough and tumble of Igbobi College (up IC) to the more genteel and slightly camp confines of Kings College. They of the white uniforms and jackets and slightly snobby attitudes. But no way. My mother had a more drastic change in mind and so it was that I found myself trussed up in a polyester safari suit, nylon shirt, rayon socks and patent leather shoes on board a flight to the USA (I was an early starter in the fashion stakes). Looking at myself in the mirror before I left I was just thinking how hot I looked with my bad self. Looking back now I realise that I was actually more than hot. I was flammable. This was in the days when they still allowed smoking on planes. One stray spark from a cigarette and home boy would be telling another story today. If at all.

Ah Cincinnati Ohio. What a lovely place. All rolling hills and cool fresh breezes. My aunt that I was going to stay with had registered me at a local high school. I was so nervous on my first day but was lucky to meet one of the nicest people I have ever come across in my life. One of those teacher\mentors that basically save your life. He looked after me for the two years that I was enrolled and I must say that it is probably very hard to find teachers like that today. His care was absolute. I cannot count the number of times I would hide out in his office, chatting, gossiping whilst he hand wrote thank you letters to all the donors to the school of which there were hundreds. Every single one of them got a thank you note. Handwritten. Every year. Respect.

I graduated with very good SAT scores and was then shipped off to Nashville for University to live with my uncle - the disciplinary dentist. And his wife - the disciplinary dentist. Needless to say I had the best teeth in college. I am sure even some horses would have traded gnashers with me. However, there was a fly in my ointment. My uncle and aunt were from the old school. TV was strictly a no no during the school week and only for a few hours on the weekend. Radio was okay and it was whilst listening to radio shows nightly that my already overactive imagination really shot into the stratosphere. In those days they would do dramas, comedies. musicals on varying nights on the radio and I really do think that not being fed the visuals via TV allowed me to build up quite a treasure chest of images, plots etc.

Regardless of this however my addiction was to television and being denied it only made me hunger for it more. What was I to do? The minute I go back from college it would be staring at me - calling my name, teasing me, testing me and after a while I came up with a plan. The way my relatives checked to see if I had been watching TV when they got back home in the evenings was to touch it, feel it, see if it was warm\hot. So I had to find my way around that. Oh the nights I spent in my room, working on formulas, hypothesis, etc - even Einstein would
have been proud of my dedication to cracking this conundrum.

Toks minus TV does not compute
therefore Toks must = TV
therefore Toks must find way to watch TV
however TV must remain cool.

Hmmm. The answer came to me in a flash. It was a moment of divine inspiration and goes to show that one must always pay attention to adults as there is so much that one can learn from them. One Sunday my aunt cooked a pot of stew. As it was a very hot day and we were going out she decided it was best that she stick it in the freezer before we left. Suddenly it all made sense. I could not wait for the following day to try out my plan.

As soon as I got back the next day I emptied out the fridge and stuck the TV in there. It was only a small portable so no problem. I then monitored the temperature on the TV over the next few hours. Over the next of days I then calculated exactly how long the TV had to be in the fridge in relation to the arrival time of my aunt and uncle. Within a week I had got it down to an art wherein I could come back from school, watch TV for say an hour, freeze it for a time and then place it back on its stand with enough time for it to return to "room temperature" within a few minutes of their arrival. Voila. The advent of cool TV.

There was one downside. My aunt could never work out why her food kept going off all of a sudden and I do feel guilty at the number of times they had to call out the Fridge repair guy who funnily enough could never find a problem with the appliance. Ode. Didirin. Did he not know there was an evil genius in the house?

Next up I am put in a dormitory on campus to prepare me for the "real world". With real girls. My own TV. My own bank account with actual money. Oh yes, Allah Akbar. God is indeed great.