Thanks To My Hair, Chinedu Wants My Number

Remember when I went to Faith’s wedding? Of course, you remember, the post went up only yesterday. Thank you for the compliments on the hair. I have received so many compliments on and offline. Just yesterday, someone said to me, “Oh, you finally decided to wear your hair down, it’s beautiful.” She thought it was my natural hair, and I just couldn’t break her heart by telling her the truth. Ha!

Okay, so my hair was done via crochet braiding, and it was done by my sister-in-law, Nyambe. She’s Igwe’s brother’s girlfriend. Got it? Igwe’s brother’s name is Olamide, and Nyambe is from Sierra Leone. They’re not married yet, but I have taken it upon myself to call her my sister-in-law. *Hint, hint Olamide!* Nyambe is such a gem. She’s just amazing. If Olamide doesn’t marry her, I’ll save her for my future son. But I digress.

Nyambe told me about crochet braiding, and after watching several videos on YouTube, I decided that I’d like to try it. It had been over a month since I decided to try it, but I kept putting it off. Then Faith’s wedding was approaching, so I figured I’d give it a try. One day, I decided to practice cornrowing my hair, but I couldn’t do it because my nails were too long, and that was how Nyambe ended up doing my hair.

I used Marley braid. I bought 4 packs of hair (and I had 1.5 packs at home), so I had a total of 5.5 packs. We didn’t cut the hair because I wanted the length. I figured that after I curled it, it would shrink. I didn’t think we would use all the hair, but my people, we ended up buying more. In total, I used 7 packs of hair. I was so confident about this hair that I told Nyambe that when I go to the wedding on Saturday, I’ll be getting a new number. After she crocheted the hair in, it was soooo much. Nyambe said I looked like the girl from that movie, The Ring. After I looked at myself in the mirror, she was right. If I were into Halloween, this would have been a perfect look.

Then we (more like Nyambe) had to roll all the hair. I went to bed with 119 rollers. To be specific, 119 cold wave rods. Several times during the night, I wanted to yank those bastards off my head. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to sleep on plastic? When I weighed myself, I was 6 pounds heavier, thanks to all the hair and rods. By the way, we did this hair on Wednesday and I planned on keeping the rods in my head till Saturday. After rolling the hair, Nyambe dipped each one into boiling water, Yes, my scalp scalded a few times from the hot steam, but it was a price I was willing to pay — all to collect number at the wedding. Men don’t even know what women go through to be fine.

On Thursday morning, no one told me to take the rods off. I couldn’t take them off fast enough. I took them off after taking a shower, but before I took a shower, I had to cover it with a trash bag. It was so big that a 13-gallon trash bag was the only thing that could cover it. After I took the rods out, it was so much hair! And it wasn’t curled because it was still wet. By the way, this hair took us 11 hours!

So Nyambe came back on Thursday to roll the hair again. I told her to cut some hair off because it was just too much for me. She cut some hair off and rolled the rest and put them in hot water again. This time, it took us about 6 hours. She used a different set of rollers. This time, they were smaller, and I slept on them for two nights (Thursday and Friday). I finally took them off on Saturday morning, and you already know what I looked like for the wedding, but in case you don’t know ….

Oh, but the best part! After the wedding, my feet were killing me, so I told Igwe to go bring the car from the parking lot and bring it to the front of the building because I was not about to walk that distance. When he left, I was walking slowly toward the exit, you know the way you walk when your feet are killing you, but you still want to be cute, so you walk slowly so that you don’t have to limp. Ehen.

That was how one guy walking past me said hello to me. I said hi back without even looking at his face because my mind was on my feet. He came back again and decided to start a conversation. He said a bunch of things, but the summary was that his name was Chinedu and he wanted my number. I told him sharp, sharp that I wasn’t available. I was in too much discomfort to even pretend to listen. He apologized. He was a tall guy wearing sunglasses. I walked away with a huge smile on my face. Yes, I was in pain, but he asked for my number! Yeeesssss!!!

I could not wait to tell Nyambe that her hard work paid off. Someone asked me for my number! This reminds me of how girls take 5 hours to dress up, only to go and refuse to dance. I just wanted to be asked for my number — so I can say no. And it happened. By the way, I don’t know why I’m using Chinedu’s real name. I usually use a fake name. What if the boy has a girlfriend? That’s how her friend will read this blog and report him to his girlfriend and kasala will burst *shrug*

P.S. If you don’t know what crochet braiding is, click this link for videos on YouTube

P.P.S. Tomorrow I’ll do a full weekend recount with many more pictures from the wedding, including pictures of Faith and her husband.