Entry #7: The Corruption of Eve

Dear Diary, I’m alive! Creaky joints, sore muscles, red eyed, fuzzy in the head, but alive! Oh joy! To feel the sun shining on my face, to hear the birds singing, to feel the strong pull of gravity beneath my feet; these are all of life’s little blessings, and I’m alive! I’m sure you might be a little surprise that I’m rejoicing so much at the gift of life especially since I wasn’t particularly at risk of losing it right? Well, that was what I also thought; but apparently, I was horribly wrong! You see, I had a close brush with certain death (at least that was what it felt like) last Saturday; and as you may be guessing already, Temi, Sam, Uche, and Mona were the authors of this near fatal plot.

It all began with my birthday; yes dear diary, I’m getting old as everyone else (that seems to be a thing in vogue; getting old). Apparently, my colleagues’ morbid sense of humor thought it funny that my birthday should also be the day I die (really?). Thinking back, I may have had a hand in my own demise because just like Eve, I didn’t let myself resist a simple temptation; this is why I’m adopting Remi Adetiba’s photo shoot title for this entry (by the way dear diary, I absolutely love those photos; I’ll acquire at least one of them the next time I’m redecorating my apartment).
I had awoken to a bright and sunny day last Saturday and a usual, the first thing I did was to reach for my mobile phone (how did humans survive before the invention of smart phones again?) that was when I saw the messages and remembered it was my birthday! I burrowed deeper into my not so fluffy bed and beddings, feeling grateful and a tad old; it was my birthday and I needed to mentally draft a programme of activities for the rest of the day. It was a bit past 7:00am, and I knew I had about 40 minutes to come up with a feasible plan for the day before it all spins out of control. I took deep breathes and began a mental scrutiny. How would I like to spend my birthday? What will be the best activities to engage in? A quiet and relaxing spa day, a selfless voluntary work at a soup kitchen, a narcissistic photo shoot followed by too much sweets, a big hair-mini dress girls night out, or a time travel-childish indulgence at Disney world (or whatever equivalent of Disney world I can find) Though it wasn’t my sixteenth birthday, or any other number of general significance, I somehow felt this birthday was special thus I needed to do something really special; now that was a bit of a challenge (well, quite a lot of challenge) seeing as I lived alone in a new town.

After going around in mental circles for about 15mins and coming up with nothing that matches my criterion, I decided I needed help. You see dear diary, I had decided that whatever I was going to do for my birthday must have a substantial degree of risks attached. For the past few weeks I’ve had this nagging feeling that I’ve been playing safe (too safe) my entire life. I could take sound business decisions based on calculated risks and spin informed guesses and theory with the right margin of error; but outside my professional world, I usually found myself running away with my tail tucked between my legs at the slightest challenge encountered. I vehemently refuse to accept that ‘running away’ was my thing, even though many of my friends seem to think it is; I simply like to leave tough situations while I still can. Well, when it comes to taking risks outside the professional world, I think I knew just the right person to call; my only fear was that her idea of the word ‘risk’ may fall way beyond my margin of sanity. I grabbed my phone and dialed; after all, there was no harm in hearing her out before I say a firm ‘no’ to all of her suggestions.
“Birthday girl!” was the first thing Temi yelled when she answer her phone, and broke into an overly enthusiastic ‘Happy birthday’ song which made me wonder just how exciting her Friday night had been. “So what’s happening? Where is it going to go down?” she asked after the song
“Well, nowhere apparently” I answered
“What?! What does that even mean?” she asked with no small measure of disgust
“It means that I’m fresh out of ideas on ‘where’ or ‘how’ it’s going to go down for my birthday” I said exasperated.
“Oh, ideas? I’ve got plenty depending on what you’re up for”
“Temi I want something fun of course, with a bit of risk”
“Risk?” Temi asked, sounding genuinely shocked “Good for you girl! Now you have my attention! Well, I already have an array of activities for you to pick from. There’s this crazy place I discovered where you can…”
“Temi! Calm down, the operating word here is risk, not insanity” I said, cutting her short as I silently shivered; I wondered what I had gotten myself into
“Hey, what’s you issue? It’s your birthday, and it’s way past time you got out of your comfort zone!” she replied, sounding offended “You know you want to try something fun for once, else why did you call me?” she was sounding querulous now and I knew I had struck a nerve.
“Ok, I give up, I’m sorry Temi, and I’m all yours; do with me whatever you will”. I could hear the triumph in her voice when she began to speak again and I knew I had just given her the license to kill me. I listened with an increasing level of alarm as she spun out a list of ‘fun stuffs’ I should try. When she finally asked “So, how many from the above list are you up for?” I was already in mild shock.
“Is that all Temi?” I asked in a small voice
“Oh, there’s more, but I can tell that you are about to hang up, and divert my calls to voice mail for the rest of the day; so I’ll stop here” I laughed; Temi is one of the craziest persons I know, but she also knows and respect boundaries.
“I don’t know Temi, let me make up my mind” I finally answered
“Ok, I’ll wait for your call; and don’t worry Ari, the entire squad will be there to hold your hands and cheer you on” she encouraged in a baby voice and she hung up.

Dear diary, under normal circumstances, the mention of the ‘entire squad’ should have been my cue to abandon the entire plan and save myself the inevitable disaster, but I was already smarting from the fact that Temi had used baby-speak on me. I didn’t want to be looked upon as an inexperienced youngster in my social life, especially not by Temi or my other colleagues for that matter and I knew that Temi was going to drag me through burning coals for the rest of the week (if not the rest of the month) should I refuse all her offers; I was stuck. In hind sight dear diary, avoiding to be looked upon as inexperienced should never be the basis on which decisions are made; trust me, I learned the hard way.

I inspected Temi’s list over and over again to pick out the least harmful options (and since there were all quite harmful, this was a most excruciating task). I needed second opinions, so I decided to called Sam as he was now the most level headed person from the squad whose opinion I could count on (this use to be Mona’s portfolio, but since the Uche thing started, she’s become almost as daring as Temi; show me your friends huh?) I dialed Sam’s cell and he picked up on the third ring. “Happy birthday honey, I’ve been waiting for the invitation” his voice boomed.
“Very funny Sam, there won’t be an invitation at all, since I can’t decide what I’m inviting people to” I replied “Luckily, Temi came up with a list of birthday activities so all I need do is to choose the right ones”
“Temi came up with a list?” Sam asked, a note of distress creeping into his voice.
“Yup, she did, and you are going to help me choose”. Sam groaned audibly while I burst into a fit of laughter.  We spent the next few minutes screening Temi’s list until we came down to one activities: a squad night out at the new ‘insane’ club house Temi had discovered (because we both agreed that it was the only one that may not result in my death). I thanked Sam and promised him a bear hug when we meet later that day, then called Temi. When I told her that I had chosen the squad night out, she laughed sarcastically and said “well, we can’t sit on our hands all day waiting for night fall, we’ll take you to Wonderland and get some healthy adrenaline pumping in your system by throwing you on the scariest rides we can find. Start getting dressed Ari, I’ll be at your place by noon”

True to words, Temi breezed into my apartment by noon. I had barely managed to be ready as I had washed my hair myself (and just in case you are wondering, I hate washing my hair myself); I was still hopping around in two different shoes, trying to decide which to wear when Temi arrived.
“What in God’s name are you wearing Ari? We are going out to have fun, not to a business meeting; where is your closet girl?!” she brushed past me and marched to my bedroom where she picked out the slinkiest outfit I’ve ever seen; I didn’t even know I owned that!
“I’m not wearing that Temi; no way, you’d have to tie me up first”. Rolling her eyes, she picked out something a little less slinky and refused to back down.

After my initial grievance at being so inappropriately dolled up by Temi, I actually had intense fun at the park with the squad. Mona and Uche were in their best behaviors, Sam was my partner in crime on all my wrong doings and Temi remained the commander-in-chief, running the whole show. I felt like a little princess being celebrated until it was night fall, and we arrived at this Temi’s ‘super cool’ place. We had a fine dinner, but that was where all finery stopped. Soon the ‘dares’ began and they was all directed at me. I was made to eat stuffs with indescribable tastes, and drink stuffs that tasted like tar (though I’m not sure what tar tastes like), and no one tried to save me; not even Sam. Dear diary, I tried to hold my stuff together, I really did try. I wanted the lot to see that I really could take risks in such situation and respect me for that, so I took all the dares head on. I soon began to feel like I was sitting at the bottom of an ocean; the very atmosphere weighed down on me like it was made of something more tangible than air but I kept on  until I found myself sick in the grass, then I knew that I had taken the wrong approach.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like I had been hit by a bus, then ran over by a train shortly after being involved in a plane crash. When the memories from the previous night began to float into my semi-consciousness, I was horrified! My immediate plan was to quit my job, book the next flight to Slovenia where I’d join a convent and live out the rest of my days basking in the ignorance of strangers (truthfully, I still have that thought in my head just in case). I was convinced that I needed surgery or some other medical procedure for the pains I felt. Temi (who was babysitting me) popped some pain killers into my mouth and told me it was only a hang over, and I should stop being a baby about it. Dear diary, this was the first time I’d gotten drunk, and from all indications, there would never be a repeat (it still shocks me that some people actually get themselves drunk on purpose; why would anyone want to feel ‘dead-ish’ and out of control on purpose?). Well dear diary, if there’s one thing I learned from the experience, it is to always, always understand and accept my limits; which may be very different from everyone else’s; and that’s fine too. Also, in bid to take risks, I must never act under conditions of uncertainty as that could be detrimental. Going on a rave with the squad and setting myself up to be challenged by them was a big uncertainty; and I, of all people, should know the difference between a risk and an uncertainty…

(Disclaimer: Aria's Note is largely fiction; as such, names, characters, businesses, organisations, associations, places, events, ans incidents are product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events, locales, associations, or organisations is largely coincidental.)