Memories of my School Days (The School General Merchant)

On a sunny afternoon, I ran into an old school mate (My college mate to be precise) at a bar. We exchange pleasantries and since then we have been in contact but something he said got me while we were trying to recollect how we knew each other and that was the fun part of my school days. In his words I quote;

”Are you not the general merchant who always had something to sell when we were in school?”

Hey!!! My school days were fun as I enjoyed every part of it. From playing with my peers, to getting into trouble which was accompanied with severe punishment or being flogged with a cane. Unlike in the western countries where school corporal punishment is illegal, in my part of the world, it happens almost every day and as student we always get our minds prepared to get a strike on our buttocks, back or palm with a cane. Hey come off it, nobody will arrest you as a teacher for beating a student with cane unless you during the process you inflict severe injuries. Should in fact, we had names for the cane like Mr. Do good (yes, that’s a name of a cane and I am sure 97% of students who schooled in Nigeria can relate with both the experience and the popular cane name).

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As a secondary school student (it is called college in some countries), myself and my friends didn’t like Monday morning. We would personally decide to come late to school and prefer to get spanked or get lashes of cane on our buttock than to attend the first lecture of the week. I have tried to find an excuse for why we didn’t like Monday morning as student but have been unable to find an answer, I guess it is the same reason a lot of people do not like work on a Monday morning.

In my secondary school, I was known as the general merchant, I did a lot of buying and selling, I got into a lot of debts and I found a way to pay them all in school. When I was at home, no one knew what I was doing, I was like every other child with only one difference of checking my daily school business register as I called it then at night before going to bed.

MY School life as a Debtor

I was stranded at one point in school because I misplaced my pocket money and my parents weren’t going to give me another for the weekend so I reached out to my friend at noon to borrow me some money so I could buy snacks and I was going to pay back the next week but they said they always spent their entire daily pocket money before 12PM but a friend of mine promised to lend me if I was going to pay back the next week. This is agreed to and the next day it happened. I was able to get snacks and I didn’t borrow more than what I could pay back (I didn’t have any formal business knowledge, I just knew it wasn’t right). I returned the money back to him the following week and immediately decided to start lending my fellow class mates money with interest while collecting their school pass as collateral. The school pass was our only means to get into the school premises.

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My School Life as a Lender

The following week, I decided to start lending my friends and classmates money with an interest of 100% within 24 hours. You can say that is ridiculous but as a young boy, it was a good start to understand how business worked. I would lend out my pocket money, collect the borrower’s school pass and ask them to fill their names, amount and signature in my register and the next day I got my money back with interest in front of the school gate. I did that for a very long time, then I decided to diversify.

My School Life as a General Merchant

I had a few change to spare, so I decided to buy portable MP3s and sell them for a little higher price to the amount I bought them. This also went well for me and I decided to start selling things people needed and what they didn’t need. I now wonder how I did all these without calling the attention of my teachers. I had a very young and innocent look, so I am sure that must have been my way to stay out of teachers finding out and my school mates were keeping to agreements.

My Secondary School experience was a combination of lashing by teachers for failed assignments, late coming to school, and being caught in the wrong places to fun parts where we decided on who would be the class clown, and then to the business part which I always enjoyed and I am sure a few friends did too because I employed them. I will be drawing the curtain here so as not to get this post excessively long.