Adulting. Who on earth invented that concept? They have to go back to their mood board to revise the entire structure of this really exhausting lifestyle. Particularly the part where you have to pay for everything you didn’t really know had to be paid for. I mean who knew pipes don’t fix themselves. Or that you actually have to buy new trash bags when they run out. Don’t even let us get started on the price of mattress or curtains or rent! All in all, being an adult is the ghetto.
To be sure that we are not the only one in this problem, we asked five Nigerians to share their most expensive brush with being adults. Read their stories below
Tayo, 22
Growing up, I was really into sports. I still am. But I used to be so reckless and I didn’t care very much about injuries or my glasses. If I got an injury, I would just go into the hospital for treatments or get new pair of glasses if I needed one because my parents had an insurance plan. But recently as an adult, I needed to get an eye test and new glasses. When I saw the bill, I was so scared because I wasn’t even expecting it. My glasses cost a shit load because of how it is for me. so just my lenses cost about ₦75,000 and the test was ₦15,000. The cheapest I could get cost about ₦35,700. I learned for the first time all this time I was just doing anyhow.
Olamide, 20
To be honest, since I started adulting, things as cheap as deodorants seem so expensive now that I pay for them. When I was younger, my dad always got them for me, from body lotion to roll on, perfumes and body wash sometimes sanitary pad, but now that I work and pay for them myself I feel like those industries are extorting us. I’m a student in Port-Harcourt but I go to school from home, I run a tye and dye business and because it pays well, my dad felt I could start paying for some little things myself. I like it though because sooner or later I would still have to as I am almost done with school.
Ayo, 29
I moved to Lagos from Ogun state in the middle of last year. When I got here, I had rented an apartment around Ago Okota, Lagos. The house is a 2 bedroom en suite flat and it was my first experience getting an apartment in Lagos. Then came the problems, house rent is about ₦800,000 excluding other charges, all in all, it was about a million Naira. Omo that is way too far from what I pay for house rent in Ogun state which is usually around ₦300,000 a year, and even though my new job can support the rent, it is still a wild bill to be paying.
Katherine, 23
The first time I experienced adulting in this way was when I moved to a school hostel in 200 level of university and had to redecorate my room. Nobody told me curtains were so expensive or that the little hook things they use to hang them at the side are also equally pricey. Now when I had to buy a mini-fridge, the prices the vendors called almost wrecked my bank account.
Jill, 24
The one thing I didn’t know was so expensive before I started adulting was Printer Ink. At my first job that was one of my tasks (stocking office supplies) so I needed to get the costs and prepare a memo. I called someone at a printing supply store to ask and omo If I knew that was the price maybe I wouldn’t have been printing Hannah Montana pictures to use as posters for my room then.
There is also, of course, medicine, they are actually so expensive. This one time, after gathering adult energy to take myself to the clinic, it was time to buy the prescribed medications. When I got to the pharmacy and the I was told that the prescriptions were worth over ₦20,000, I told the pharmacist abeg cos him and who? Small sick oh. He legit laughed and had to reduce and substitute here and there.
