Wolf

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Sometime last year, on my way to the saloon I boarded a taxi. I was the only one occupying the front seat and two women occupied the back seat. One was a lot older than the other. The older one looked like a shop owner, she had few things in a bag that she was carrying that early morning to her 'shed'. She seemed to be occupying too much space and choking the other woman, even as it was just the two of them. When it was time for her to alight the vehicle, it took almost 5 minutes for her to alight. She grunted and dragged her bag out finally. Immediately she dropped, the driver heaved a sigh of relief and the other woman began to talk about how miserable the woman had made her and how people did not have conscience etcetera, etcetera.

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Not far from where the older woman had alighted, two young women stopped the taxi to enter. The second old woman was already occupying space for two people and the young women had to squeeze in themselves. When they could not take it any longer, one of them asked the second old woman to 'adjust', she even threatened to alight the vehicle if the woman did not move. The woman immediately barked at how she would not move and all what not, she kept on talking. The driver immediately turned and told her, "You see wetin you been dey criticize the other woman for?" I was watching her from the corner of my eye, she wore a shame-full countenance and she shut up. I was the last person to drop from the vehicle that day. "Na you be the only person wey I carry today wey no get wahala." The driver said to me as we approached my destination. When I finally came down from the vehicle, I thought a lot about what he said and I remembered an instance where I had thought someone else's 'sin' was too big because I wasn't doing that 'sin' at that particular time. If that driver was there, he'd have bought differently.

"Why do we cry 'wolf' for people who own fireflies, when we have dragons in our closet?"

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Today, I payed a visit to the University of Port Harcourt for something I was working on. I had a really frustrating day and was really upset, until I saw a course mate of mine back then in the university. We talked about a lot of things concerning the way the university system worked and some problems people were facing. I was beginning to relax and forget about my problems, I'd even began to laugh when a short fair lady approached us and asked if I had a pen. Several important documents were in my handbag and like I wrote before I was having a frustrating day, my handbag was not arranged and searching through it for my pen would be like searching a hay sack for a pin. I wasn't even sure I had brought a pen along and I told her this. Her response shocked me, with an annoying mock-full smile, she said "Hmm… student doesn't have pen." I turned to face her and I realized she was coming out of an office where they signed papers (she was a staff whose duty was to write things down). I became irritated and I replied sternly "I am not a student, are you? You should have a pen too." I nodded towards her office. She was wise enough to leave because of the look on my face.

Why do we do this? Why is pointing out someone else's sin important especially when we commit the same or even bigger ones than that?