Tuesday, November 6, 2012

At The Western Sun

I'm not sure exactly why it happened to me last night, but I suppose its a tad to late to ask why's and what ifs now. Thing is, i got robbed last night.Well, not entirely.

My car got broken into whilst I was at a meeting with a potential client in pub within a popular but slightly dingy neighborhood in Osu, a suburb of Accra. Mind you nothing was stolen; but the fact that a total stranger had been prowling about in the boot of my car and touching my things made my skin crawl and gave me a sudden urge to pee - also fueled by the two sprites on ice with lemon wedges and the on-the -house shot of something quite sweet but lethally potent at the pub.

However having 'almost' been robbed, I resolved to save my emergency for a preferably well lit up place and with numerous people milling about in case my would-be robber was tailing me in an effort to snatch my handbag after seeing the rather unappealing contents of my car boot - a spare tyre, an old pair of sandals and a gallon of engine oil. So I mapped out the route to the Holiday Inn which fortunately was on my way home,  drove my foot literally into the ground and accelerated in an effort to tighten my PC muscles so that I could make it to the loo on time.

Well as you can imagine, I missed the turning to the Holiday Inn by a small miscalculation. I nearly cried from sheer desperation, but  the fear ruining the car seat put me in check. So instead I stepped on the gas some more, convinced that if I made it to the motorway I would be home free, tops ten minutes.

I didn't make it to the Tetteh Quarshie interchange either. Moments before I hit it, I felt that intense pressure in your bladder which tells you just to let go and let flow - literally! Just at that very moment, I spotted The Western Sun, a hotel just about a minutes drive before the interchange which led to the motorway and I chose to make a sharp turn to the right, careened into the parking lot and brought the car to a screeching halt! Grabbing my handbag, jumped out, locked the doors and with my kitten heels making clicking noises on the pavement, this lil piggy practically run crying 'wee wee wee' to the loo.

It was only moments later as I sat doing my business with eyes closed and a smirk of relief at the corner of my mouth did it dawn on me that the hotel was rather quiet. I started to recall a few things: the absence of the door man and the front desk attendants, and most of all the blinding silence...outside the steady stream of my you know what of course.
Flashbacks of movies like Nightmare on Elm Street and Stranger came to mind - ghastly murders of beautiful (yes i called myself beautiful) young girls slaughtered in a ghastly manner simply because they wandered away from the group.

So again for the third time that night, I panicked! My weak PC muscles suddenly gained Herculean strength and shut off the slow flow, I flushed the loo, grabbed my keys and run like there were beasts at my heels and until I found myself safely locked in the car, where I made an illegal right turn and headed straight home - all thoughts of needing the loo forgotten.

I found out later from my sister that the Western Sun has been closed down for about a month or two....Oops