One of the most unprofitable things to do to oneself is when you feel the urge to use the washroom and there is none around. You get to the nearest KVIP and they are charging so much. You pay with your last money and enter. You struggle with tears in your eyes and ‘nothing is coming’ resulting in you wasting money based on false alarm! If you happen to find yourself in the most expensive part of Ashahman, then you have a problem. Check out the price list of a popular KVIP at AShahman Jeliko where toilet prices are quoted in dollars:

Normal WC - $1, Ordinary stomach - $1.50, Obolo stomach - $1.80, economy - $2, business class - $3, running stomach (with own ‘graphic’) - $2.50, runny stomach (without own ‘graphic’) - $3, executive - $5 with free jot (cigarette).

Beautiful ladies $1.20. Ugly ladies $6. Handsome men $2. Ugly men $10. If you know you are not handsome or beautiful, please don’t visit Ashahman this weekend especially if you ate pawpaw the previous night bcos it can be expensive to go to toilet there. But please scientists, why does the toilet of beautiful people also smell? Abeg, I don’t want an answer; just go to toilet because it’s international toilet dayyyyy - hurray! Hahaaaaa!

Last Monday, there was a promo at one of such KVIPs – visit the place four times in six hours and get the opportunity to pass gas for free!

Why do you think I love Ashahman so much? It is the only place where the punishment for urinating at the wrong place attracts no monetary penalty but five slaps on the spot. That’s all!

What is the difference between toilet roll and toilet soap? When I was about 14 years old, Auntie Jane sent me to buy her toilet soap and dashed me one to go and use. That was the first time I heard the name ‘toilet soap’. So anytime I go to toilet, I use it for the name it depicts bcos of its perfume. After all, is it not toilet soap? I still have that particular soap in my house museum for tourist attraction. Abi na toilet soap! Make I hear something. Englishman always making life difficult! If toilet soap cannot do what toilet roll does, then why do you call it toilet soap? If the soap is for bathing, just say ‘bathing soap’. The moment you call it ‘toilet’, you confuse those of us from the village and we tend to use it to clean the eyi after the eyi as perfume! Y3nbr33y3!

I used to live in a compound house at Kisseman. It had 21 rooms each occupied by tenants and their families. In the early 1990s there was no electricity at Kisseman so darkness was our friend. One evening at about 7.30pm, I was going to take my bath. If you ever lived in a compound house, you know what I’m NOT talking about.

While bathing with soap lather on my face, my soap slipped from my hand and fell. I tried to pick it but realized suddenly and strangely so, the soap became suddenly too soft thus preventing me from having a firm grip on it. Of course my eyes were closed. As I managed to open my eyes small to see my soap, it coincided with a stench that wafted across my nose. Ajeeeei! Lord God have mercy! There seems to be some accidental swapping. I picked the ‘wrong soap’ and dropped it immediately.

Apparently the one who came to bath before me had an urge while bathing and knowing there was no toilet facility around, the safest thing to do was to ‘drop’ it in the bathroom borkorrrrr. I was sure it was a man toilet bcos it was big, similar to what wee smokers usually generate from excessive consumption of carbohydrates after smoking the thing.

As big as the house was, the landlord did not provide a toilet facility bcos he didn’t see the use for it. After all, he was going to the bush himself!

That was when I relocated from that house o. I had a girlfriend then. Anytime she visited, I prayed silently so her stomach does not do krrrrrrrr! If you had running stomach in the night, it becomes a matter of you and your God! It got to a point where black polythene bag business was booming, so was cholera trending. Our landlord was never bothered. The room he could have used as a toilet for the 21 tenants and their families, he converted into another room to rent.

That was the time I was once returning from work and saw my friend Otsi walking with speed towards the bush. I knew where he was going but I deliberately mischievously stopped him to chat! He was lucky he ignored me.

Those days we used to walk a few kilometers to around where the current head office of UTT Life is located. That’s when you enter the bush through a small footpath and face the road and squat. When you notice someone is coming and the person could easily identify you, you turned your ‘useless’ back in order that the person can see you in the act alright but cannot identify you in the face.

You remember this my experience? I wasn’t bothered about whether I’d used the washroom or not before leaving for work. When I got into the heat of the traffic ‘nature placed a call to me’. I ignored the call. ‘It’ called again, I pretended I didn’t hear. Then it used force. I pretended it couldn’t be true. Nooo. I had to suppress an urge to cough. The devil is a liar; not here. But it prompted me again and the urge was getting stronger. Yeeeeeei! Ewurade, this cannot happen here oo. Not in this heavy traffic and I was already in the inner lane! No turning back and patience, endurance and prayers! I would have feigned an epileptic seizure so that I abandon my car and carried into an ambulance so I could respond to ‘my nature’s call but the ambulance itself had no choice but to join the traffic jam! Nowhere to turn to. I couldn’t abandon my car in the ‘sardine-packed’ traffic either. When I looked right, there was no hope! Left, no hope… bcos I was sure not all the houses around could have toilet facilities if even I should hop into any of them! I started sweating profusely.

I nearly wept but as to what happened thereafter, please don’t ask any questions Ah! All I remember was that I abandoned the car in the middle of the road, opened the bonnet and chocked it. I left it there as if it had broken down and jumped out. Almost all the houses I visited had plenty rooms but no toilet facility. It became a matter of life and death. I started cursing the landlords for lack of toilet vision!

Lack of adequate toilet facilities is the cause of so many illnesses around us. Get to some of the coastal towns around. See us at some of our beaches squatting at dawn and in the evenings to ‘receive fresh air’ where men and women face each other reading each other as newspapers while ‘downloading, whistling and singing at the same time – a complete melody only in Ghana though - no fight, no violent waves, only sweet melodies and by far some manageable stench – you don’t even need a cigarette! It’s bcos landlords have failed to provide!

We have achieved a lot la by building houses and failed in giving our tenants toilets. If there is an enforceable law, why don’t we do it for landlords and land ladies to provide toilets as prerequisites for renting out their rooms. Every tenant should also henceforth demand a manifesto from their would-be landlords or landladies before accepting the rents o.

So do some politicians listen to themselves when they are talking? For a politician saying that Accra is clean now does not come to me as surprise bcos indeed ‘Accra is clean now’! Ei? Hmmm!

Anyway there were too many international day observations this week o. International Children’s Day and International Diabetes Day, et al. December 1 is also coming for us to celebrate world AIDS Day but until then don’t celebrate ‘anything’ o bcos the thing is there o, yoo.

As we mark world toilet day, please be reminded that there would be toilet beach jams this weekend to celebrate nothing but toilet. Indeed any event that takes place without a humorous twist in business circles in Ghana is no event. You remember how bieja bitters came about? Happy toilet weekend? Why? You didn’t do it today? Then you have constipation! You need ‘leaving’ bitters! Hahahahaaaa!