Let me tell you the story of (one of) the worst day(s) of my life. Hint: you probably thought that it was one of my best days... it wasn't. Sit back, get some popcorn and brace yourself. It's going to be a very long one.
It all started the night before (or rather the morning cos this was past midnight). I was supposed to go to bed early (or earlier) because I was going to wake up earlier, but as usual, there was something not so important to do, a video not too important to watch or a tweet definitely not important at all to read that kept me up later than I should have been. I went to bed at around 2am to get up at around 5am.
It was a warm(ish) summer morning; I woke up to the sound of my alarm. It was already bright outside, longer days and shorter nights, summer solstice and alladat as we were taught in Geography. I got ready and left the house at about 6. I was supposed to be at the train station before 7:30 for my train. The map said it would take me about an hour by bus, so leaving at 6 allowed sufficient time to get to the train station. My plan allowed for some 20-minute wiggle room but was that enough? Well, let's get more into the story to see.
For context, the day in question is the 20th of July 2021. If you don't know what that day is, it was the day I had my Master's degree graduation ceremony from Loughborough University. Yea, as I said 2 paragraphs ago, you probably thought it was one of my best days, but it wasn't. So where did it go left?
Before I tell you what went left, let me give you a rundown of what "right" was supposed to look like.
I was supposed to wake up to my alarm at around 5:15, get ready an leave the house before 6. Catch the 1st bus from somewhere near my house, get to the location Google maps said the next bus was supposed to be, get on that bus and arrive at the station by 7:10 so I can comfortably wait for my train at around 7:30.
Get on the train at 7:30, get to Loughborough at around 9. From Loughborough, get a bus or taxi to go to a nearby town where I was supposed to get my makeup done and be done with that by 11-ish. Come back to the university at about 12 and take professional graduation photos with my made-up face and graduation gown. Be seated at around 1:15 for the ceremony that starts at 1:30. March through the stage feeling good, have the reception, collect my degree certificate, and catch my bus at 6pm from Loughborough to London. Then get to London at around 9pm, get home by 10pm-ish.
Now that the right has been established, here's how the day ACTUALLY went.
PART 1: TAKEOFF (HOW IT STARTED)
So back to the story, I was out of the house by around 6 am and caught the 1st bus at the exact right time. I got to my bus stop and rightly got off. Then Google maps said, walk 3 minutes to the next bus stand to get on the 2nd bus to get to the train station.
I got to where Google maps said the bus stand was supposed to be, and Lo and behold, brethren bus stand, I did not see. I looked left, right, looked up, looked down, brodehs and sistehs (in Ghanaian accent) there was no bus stand to be seen. Ok, I said to myself, maybe I missed a turn somewhere. Let me go back to the bus stand I got off at; after all, I had sufficient time, I planned well.
I walked back where I got off, followed the map to the end, and there was no bus stand. I tried another street, still no bus stand. I was indeed turnioniown, or in this case, turnionmyown. I kept saying to myself, "look at stop M, look at stop O, but where is stop N" because stop N was where I was going to. It quickly turned to a mathematics word problem: if heaven is above, and Buhari is president, find stop N 😭😭
After walking back and forth like the son of man who had no place to lay his head, I resolved I had no time for this nonsense, and I was starting to run late. It was almost 7 at this point. So I ordered an Uber. The Uber app said it should take 19 minutes to get from where I was to the train station which was fine because it was like 7 on the dot.
However, Uber doesn't account for how long it would take the driver to locate you. And because I was still moving in hopes that I would find the bus stand, it made it that much harder for the Uber driver to just follow the map and pick me up. Coupled with the fact that the Uber map does not often map locations down to the street numbers, the map just said the pick up was "Edna street," for example, instead of number 25A Edna street. So now the Uber driver was calling me to know where exactly I was. Another issue arose; the Uber driver's English was not so good.
I was getting a headache trying to explain to this guy where exactly I was. After about 10 minutes of much talk, the Uber driver finally got to me at about 7:09, and we started the journey. According to the driver's map, ETA (Expected time of Arrival) was 7:26. Which should have been fine for me to get on my train. But all thanks to the Mayor of the City of London, who had construction going on virtually EVERYWHERE, there were traffic lights for virtually every 1-minute of driving. So poco a poco, little by little, the ETA kept moving to 7:27, 7:28, etc.
And to make matters worse, I don't know if this driver was doing it intentionally, but for some reason, this guy was driving slower than I needed him to go. In my head, I'm like, "Does he not know what is at stake?", "Can he not telepathically infer that I will miss my train that cost me an arm and a leg to pay for if he doesn't hurry the FUCK up?" Eventually, we got to the train station at 7:29.
I got out of the car and start running.
And because I've never entered that train station from the road before, I did not know what entrance to go from, so I was running but with no actual direction 😭(insert all the motivational quotes about how it's not about speed but direction).
For context, the train station I was going to was London St Pancras train station. That train station has an international wing where trains going to other parts of Europe are and a local wing. Guess the entrance your sis ran to 1st? The international wing. I quickly realized that wasn't the entrance I was supposed to go through. So I went back out, ran in the opposite direction, and kept running until I got to the right platform. I got to the gate of my platform and showed my ticket to the people at the gate, and they checked and told me the train had LEFT, departed, gone. I missed my train.
After everything, after walking back and forth, turnioniown and RUNNING like my life depended on it, I missed my train. I was in denial. Telling the people at the gate "but I can see this other train here naaa is that not the train" they were like no, that one is going to Wellingborough (which although has the same surname as Loughborough, are very very very far from each other). After sweating, panting in their front, and almost bursting into tears, the most senior person at the gate (one of the angels God sent to soften the blow of the terrible, horrible day I was about to have) said I shouldn't worry. He wrote me another ticket to take the next train going to Loughborough in about an hour for FREE and asked me to wait for it. Typically, they would have told me to pay for the next train, but this kind man just helped me out.
It was 7:33am. I went to sit somewhere close to the train platform to catch my breath. My plan was already off to a rough start.
INTERMISSION: Sit with me while I catch my breath.
Before we go to part 2, let's do some recap of the causes of the problems and the moral lessons:
Finding the 2nd bus stop: I blame Google maps and the Mayor of London for the many constructions going on. Maybe if there weren't so many constructions, the bus stop would have been where Google maps said it was. But knowing Google maps, I know that even then, that app still lacks sense sometimes, so maybe the map was just mad.
You might be thinking, why didn't I just take an uber from my house to the train station? Cos, that would have been stupid expensive. The 2 buses I would have taken for about an hour would only cost £1.55. An Uber from my house would cost at least 20 times that. Plus, there was no reason to. Google maps led me to believe I could have taken the bus easy peasy. And at that time, I wasn't into the trains in London at all. I was fully a bus girl.
I've now learned that there's an app called TfL (Transport for London) that has the most accurate map of where all the bus stands are in London and funny enough, I had the app on my phone on that day, but I didn't use it back then cos I didn't know I could have used it for that purpose.
I also later learned that there is an entrance to the local wing of the train station from the international wing I originally entered. So who knows, maybe if I didn't come back out to the street and instead just ran from there, I could have caught my train just on time.
Anyways back to the story
PART 2: OFFSET (HOW IT'S GOING)
I got on the train at past 8 and got to Loughborough at 9:30. Since I was already behind schedule, I opted to just take an Uber from the train station to where I was supposed to get my makeup done. I get an Uber and arrive at where I was supposed to get my makeup done at 10. By 11:30, the makeup was done. I thought I still had time, so I asked the makeup artist to help me straighten my hair, and because I didn't want to keep the Uber driver waiting, I ordered the Uber AFTER she finished straightening my hair.
One thing about small towns is they don't have many Uber drivers. Loughborough is known to only have TWO Uber drivers. So after she finished straightening my hair, I ordered the Uber. Uber paired me with the same guy who picked me from the train station, and the guy was at Loughborough University. This meant it would take him about 23 minutes to drive from the university to where I was to pick me and another 23 minutes to drive back to the university to drop me off 🤦🏾♀️
Which meant that, at best, I would get to the university at around 12:50. With very little time between when I arrive at the Uni and get my gown, chances are, the professional photographers would have stopped taking pictures by then.
I ordered the taxi anyway. The guy got to where he was to pick me at almost 12:30. We got in the car, and I was already feeling hot. My makeup would soon start melting 😭I asked him to turn on the AC, but that wasn't reaching me well because they have these barriers that Uber made cars have because of COVID.
So I just rolled down my window instead. The speed we were driving meant that heavy wind was hitting my face and making me teary-eyed, which was not helpful. Anyways, we got to school at past 1, I got my gown, and as I guessed, they didn't let me take any professional photos. My makeup had already started melting anyways cos it was a warm summer afternoon. I tried to get some strangers around me to give me some shots on my phone, but those were not any good, and quite frankly, that wasn't why I was there.
So all this money spent to get there with my make up done and I could not get 1 professionally taken picture 🤦🏾♀️
After getting my graduation gown, the next thing was to get on a bus that'd take us to the graduation venue. It was already like 1:22pm at this time. We got on the bus, but the bus driver was waiting for the bus to be full before he moved! I'm like, does this guy think he's going to Ojuelegba? The bus ride is free fgs! you are not collecting money. Why must all of us be late cos you are waiting for the bus to load? Plus, there's a panoramic fgs! COVID is outside. Shouldn't we be soshu distancing?
My topmost fear was that I hope this place was not like Covenant, where they would lock us out of the graduation venue because we were not seated at the right time 😅 Full-blown PTSD! Oh, and my makeup was melting while we waited.
The bus eventually got full, and we moved to the venue by past 1:30. We had a minute of not knowing where the grad venue was, but we eventually found it. About 15 minutes into the ceremony, we walked the stage
"OG-GENIE RUK-EVVVWE OD-U-JO-GO"
The announcer pronounced whatever version he imagined Oghenerukevwe Odjugo to be. Perhaps the highlight of my day 😂 I laughed as I walked past the stage and doffed my hat at our lovely Vice-Chancellor, Bob, and went back to my seat. Sat through the ceremony, which lasted for 45 minutes, and went out to take pictures with my friends. By this time, my makeup was halfway gone. I did not have any materials to touch up, but I took pictures anyway. Not any of them I could frame, but I had them still.
My friend Jessica, her mum, dad, brother, sister, and I walked over 20 minutes from one end of the school to another to get to the reception venue, where we had small chops and A LOT of juice and water. While we sat there, I brought out my laptop, which I had with me, and charged my phone cos it was running low at that point. After I set that up, I left them to go get my certificate and transcript from another building which was like 12 minutes away. I got there and thankfully got all my documents. On my way back, it started drizzling. So I used my body to shield my certificate from water. It was the only important thing I had on me that needed protecting.
After everything, we walked to where we were supposed to drop the graduation gowns (which cost money to rent for the day). The place was another 35 minutes' walk away from where we were. At this point, the soles of my feet were tired from all the walking and running I had done for the day. Thankfully, I caught a bus that helped me get from a point halfway through the walk to the destination.
I got there, dropped off the gown, and found the nearest bathroom to wipe off whatever was left of the makeup. I forgot to put makeup wipes in the bag I packed the night before to take with me, so I had to use tissue and hand wash soap to get the makeup off my face. Skincare gurus probably had a heart attack at the sight of the last sentence, but that's their family problem.
It was almost 6pm. I had to hurry to catch my bus. I bid farewell to Jessica and her family and walked in the direction I thought the exit was cos I had never been to that part of campus in my 1 year at Loughborough. After walking for almost 8 minutes, I just turned back and tried to find another way out.
On my way back, I saw a man walking to his car and thought to myself, "he's a stranger; I probably; would never be in Loughborough again so if I asked him for a ride and he said no, there's no shame at all". In the words of a motivational speaker, I already had my no in my head; I should go ask him and get my yes. Thankfully, he agreed to drive me to the bus stand, although he didn't know for sure where that was; another angel.
He dropped me off where we thought the bus stand was, and I waited. Because this was a small town, there was no one else at the bus stand, and there were no signs with the name of the bus stand like the way there are in London, so while I stood there, I wasn't sure if I was at the right place.
A few minutes past 6, I saw the National Express bus I was supposed to enter driving on the other side of the road. I thought to myself (a very stupid thought) that maybe the bus stand was on the other side of the road, so I ran to cross the road. For context, this road has 2 lanes, a 1-lane wide demarcation, and 2 lanes on the other side of the road. I ran across the road with my big backpack at my back to try to catch the bus. National Express buses are usually double-decker, so there was no way the driver would have seen me running from behind if truly the bus stand was on the other side of the road, but I ran anyway. On getting to the other side of the road and realizing there was no bus stand on that side of the road, I just stopped and looked.
Then the bus turned and moved to the side of the road where I was standing previously, and before I could run back to the stand where I was supposed to be to signal to the driver to stop, the bus had passed. And that, my friends, was how I missed my 6pm bus. After walking, asking a stranger for a ride, running to the other side of the road, and running back, I missed the bus. And that was the last bus for the day. The next bus would leave at around 3am the next day. I had work the next day, so I had to be in London that night. Getting another train would be expensive, and I had already spent so much that day.
There was no seat at the bus stand, so I just sat on the grass of the pavement close to the road and gave up.
All my plans went left.
I did not get the professional graduation pictures that could have been framed. Spent money for makeup, to rent the gown, to get to Loughborough, and for what?
"OG-GENIE RUK-EVVVWE OD-U-JO-GO"
And to wrap it all up, I was running on just 3 hours of sleep and small chops.
After sitting there in despair for like 5 minutes, I knew my only option was to pay for the next train and get out of there. So I paid for it. Another unplanned expense. The money I paid for the bus was GONE, I didn't get on the bus. So, the next task was getting from where I was to the train station.
I answered the call, and it was someone from my Loughborough church. She talked about how it was our graduation, and we didn't invite anybody. As you can tell, I was not in the mood for this. In the calmest way I could, I just told her the day wasn't going well for me, I missed my bus; I was trying to walk to the train station, I'd spent a lot of money, and I was very tired. So she let me be, and I continued my walk of shame and despair.
A few minutes later, she called again, and I thought, God, why this?! I answered anyway. And she said she just drove past me and saw me looking tired. So she sent the taxi she was riding in to come pick me up and drive me to the station at NO COST to me. Another angel, I thought 😭😭
I walked for a bit more and saw the taxi. Got in and off to the train station. I eventually got to the train station on time to join the 7:30pm train, so I decided to join that one. I thought to myself, well, since it's a 1 hr 30-minute train ride, I should get to London by 9, which was earlier than I would have got on the bus since the bus was going to be a 3 hr 30-minute ride. So there was some upside.
PART 3: QUAVO (YOU THINK THAT'S THE END? OH NO, THERE'S MORE)
Remember I told you that it drizzled? Apparently, there were showers of blessings rain all over the area, which meant some rail tracks were flooded. This caused some train cancellations and ultimately meant my train had to move so slow at some point that if I was walking beside it, I would overtake it. At some other point, we just stopped for like 30 minutes doing nothing, just waiting till we got the green light to move. We eventually got to London by like 9:40pm. Even later than I would have arrived if I had taken the bus. There goes my upside.
I got to London, put my home address in Google maps, and asked the map to get me home. Like the morning, maps said it'd take a connection of 2 buses to get home. So I said, ok, show me the 1st bus stand; after some slight madness, I got to the 1st bus stand and got off at the right bus stand.
So Google maps started, Find stop E. I followed the map to where it said it was supposed to be, ladies and genumen, there was neither a stop nor was there an E to be seen. I walked around again; this was past 10pm at night o. I just started screaming in frustration; my soles were tired AF. Google maps where is stop E ooooooooo! There was an intersection of 4 streets. I walked down each street in search of stop E. And like it was in the morning, I found stop D, I found stop F but stop E was nowhere to be seen. After turnionmyown for like 20 minutes, I asked Google maps again, how do I get home from where I'm standing rn. Google maps said take another bus, ride for 2 stops and take another bus.
So now my journey went from 2 buses long to 3 buses.
I took that bus and got to the destination, and this time Google maps said, "your new task is to find stop AB." I followed the map to where it said stop AB was supposed to be, like Shaggy, IT WASN'T ME THERE. I walked another 12 minutes. Screaming at Google maps, there is no stop AB here, FGS! I tried putting the location where I was standing to my home, and Google maps offered another bus route that'd take about 40 minutes to get home. Thankfully, I knew the exact place where the bus stand Google maps said I should go to was. So I went there, got on the bus and got somewhere 5 minutes away from my house.
As a waka jugbe (serial trekker) that I am, there's nowhere within a 5-minute radius of my house that I don't know. But this was 11:30pm. The geolocational faculties in our brains work differently at night than they do during the day. After looking and looking, I eventually realized where I was and sharply got home by 11:40pm.
Thus marked the end of my day that started at 5:15am that ran on 3 hours of sleep and just some small chops and juice for food for the entire day.
Moral lessons: FUCK Google Maps. A very disastrous implement. Bombastic element. I still use Google maps every now and then, but when the map starts acting funny with the mapping of bus stops, I just pull out my trusty TfL app, which has a more accurate map of all the bus stops in London.
Looking back at it, considering the angels I got, the memory of walking the stage (albeit fleeting), and possibly the food and getting to collect my certificate, maybe a more accurate title would be "Edna and the Terrible Horrible Some Good but still Very bad day". When you factor in the fact that the day cost me about £500 between paying for the trains, renting the grad gown, makeup, etc., and I did not get ONE professional picture I could frame, you'd get why the title is what it is.
PS: if you were thinking why are the different parts named after the Migos? Know that it was for absolutely no reason whatsoever. When I was writing the 1st part, I thought to name it Takeoff and immediately got the idea to name the other parts after the other members of the Migos 😂
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