Market Tale: "I No Get Change" epidemic...

   

 So yesterday I did something bold and took myself and my handbag to a Lagos market. I've always been the estate shopper kind of woman. I just go downstairs and buy my groceries from a one stop shop near my house, but this time hubby requested for us to stop eating frozen foods and start buying live chicken, and with that request there was no other way around it. So yesterday morning after staying up thinking about all the things that could go wrong, I woke up early, got my self together, counted my shopping cash, and was off. I went to one of the newly renovated markets around my area. Of course I didn't go alone ( you want make I loss?), I went with my handy dandy baba. Luckily for me the road was newly built and not yet opened for cars, so I had the freedom of walking around comfortably without having to deal with mud on my shoes. The first place I stopped was the chicken slaughter pin. As I stared at the chickens I couldn't bring myself to choose the one I want. Yes I eat chicken and love it, but it's different when you see an animal alive and then the next minute it's dead and inside your stew. But hey, man's got to eat. Baba pointed to the fattest chicken in the cage, and without a second wasted the seller grabbed the chicken and killed it. I closed my eyes as the killing process went on, and decided to go and buy some other things on my list as the chicken was being killed.

      I came to a second shop that had about half the things on my list, so I decided to do most of my shopping there. After buying a lot of things, it came time to pay. I paid my bill expecting to get change and next thing the woman says she does not have change. Need I tell you that there was a big box of change right under her chair that she was hiding from me. I've lived in Nigeria before, so I'm quite familiar with this trick. Sellers always tell you they don't have change in order to make you buy something worth the change. I really wasn't having that, it was bad enough that the money hubby gave me seemed to be barely enough, and half the goods I bought ended up costing more than what I had planned for, so I was pressed for cash. I decided to give her a different amount so that she can give me change in a different denomination ( e.g. If you buy something worth N50, and give the seller N100, your change will be N50. But if the seller does not have N50, then you can give her N150, and she will give you N100). That did not work at all, she sat and continued to insist that there was no change and that I should just buy maggi cubes. I suggested she send her shop boy to look for change, but that just seemed to heavily frustrate her, she just wanted me to give up... So I gave up. My legs were tired and I just wanted to go home. We went by the chicken place, picked up our chicken, picked up other things we needed and we were off home.
    When I got home I prepared two delicious stews with my market goods, chicken stew, and vegetable fish stew. Long story short hubby came back from work and ate like a king, and boy oh boy was everyone happy!

Do you ever experience market headaches such as this one? Ladies? Gents? Let's hear it.

Photo Credit:
https://www.naij.com/699262-top-10-foodstuff-markets-lagos.html