There is a kind of boredom that is harmless is the one that makes you sleep like a new born baby. However, there is another form, a dangerous form, the one that tells you strange ideas in your ear like a ghost. The latter is the one that has brought me no less shame than once. As a matter of fact, I had worst experience of boredom many years ago but the experience still stalks me like a village rumour that refuses to die.
It was one of the protracted, dragging post-WAEC holidays. You see how it is at that age when you are too old to be handled like a child and too lazy to be treated like grown-up people. My parents had gone out to an occasion, my brothers and sisters had gone out to see their friends, and I alone was left to my own devices, with not a soul in company but the ceiling fan and a bad boredom that lay on my chest.
Initially, I attempted to get distracted. I increased the volume of the television until the voice began to sound like noise, I slept till my body did not want to sleep, I roamed about the house like a soldier awaiting orders. Still, boredom held me tight and then the ghost of ill thoughts came.
It all started with a small, harmless idea, which was I should just cut my hair short.
I was before the mirror and looked at my hair. Barbing shops were too far, and it was too hot out of doors and I was big enough to do it myself.
I took out the clipper belonging to my brother, the one which he kept as a treasure and I inserted it. The music in itself also provided me with false courage. I held the mirror quite well, tilted my head forward like a professional barber and made the first cut. The first line was not really bad, to be truthful. It looked almost straight, that little success made me daring to go on.
However, I moved my hand accidentally after the second cut when the clipper became stuck. My hair looked like a patchy patch like farm clearings.
I froze, the feeling of boredom left me almost immediately, my brain rebooted and I looked at myself for an entire minute. "What have I done?" I asked aloud. The same question was asked to me in my reflection.
Each fresh effort to fix the hair aggravated it. I was no longer a normal teenager after fifteen minutes and I was a full time masquerade apprentice. The right side was lower than the left, even the middle looked like a man cutlass had been used to cut the design, the front hair was so wavy that even a village carpenter who is blind would have done better.
The embarrassment which enveloped me that day was great. I thought of keeping on a cap forever. At one instance, I sat on the bed just asking myself what made boredom to consider me as its individual project.
The worst case was how my brother reacted when he arrived home and discovered that his clipper blades were bent, he shouted “Who touched my clipper?”
His voice shook in the house like thunder. I could not tell a lie, my hair had already given the whole story. As he spotted me, he laughed so loud that people in the houses came out, I did not find it amusing at all but he laughed until his stomach ached.
For days, everyone who happened to look at me was trying not to laugh and was unable, not even my mother managed to conceal her amusement. When I shook my head she went on to say "Next time, carry your two legs to the barbing salon. However, it hurt and she was correct.
That incident made me learn something that boredom is not only an attitude, it drives you into things that you would not want to see on an ordinary day. It transforms madness into genius, it transforms mundane concepts into disastrous conclusions.
However, I have improved over the years in fighting boredom. At this juncture, whenever I feel bored, I will not sit and allow it to talk nonsense to me. I also do something any productive thing like read books, write stories, take a walk, wash the house, or call a friend. I even sleep sometimes but at least I do not take clippers again.
I discovered that I am not going to be bored, the most effective way to fight boredom is to remain active. Not necessarily in big things but in small meaningful activities. Life is made lighter with things that you fill up on purpose. And wicked boredom is like a kind of robbery, and robs the people who keep their minds open.
Now, I am able to laugh at the incident. The hair grew back. My pride eventually healed. And the tale has made it one of my best jokes to tell. Never will I forget the lesson.
Noted: All pictures were generated on Meta AI