I am a writer not a walking-talking dictionary!

Imagine walking down the road at mid-day, late for a press conference and the annoying guy down your street who has made it his life's work to be your wannabe boyfriend walks up to you and says 'Baby! Thank God I saw you, I tried your number yesterday but I couldn't get through. My friends and I were arguing about something.' With a disdainful glare, you look at him and decide you might as well wait and listen since doing otherwise would provoke more catcalls from his jobless friends. 'Baby, Shebi you said you are a writer? Oya tell my friend that adolescent means someone that is like this our age, 25 to 30 years. He said it is when you clock 21. Oya tell him.' He urges. I don't know about you, but at this point I was furious.
'For Christ's sake consult a dictionary. That's what people do when they need to know the meaning of a word!' I thundered in response 'But you studied English in school na?' The wannabe boyfriend whined in response. 'Baby no fall my hand o, I don tell them say you be correct "Efiwe". No come dey do like "Olodo" o.' I stormed off throwing two words back at him, angry at myself for waiting to listen to his drivel.

I'm sure many of you have experienced this before, probably in another variation. The moment people hear you are a professional in a particular field, they automatically have something they want you to do. A doctor is immediately besieged with scores of questions on why one arm is a little bigger than the other. Another wants to know if the pimple on his back is actually a cancerous cyst. A lawyer on the other hand is immediately expected to answer questions on landlord - tenant relationships, however peculiar that particular relationship is. A politician is expected to know why the road on a particular street has remained untarred for the past 10 years while the street next to it has been tarred. An artist is expected to produce paper and pencil and immediately prove he can draw by sketching something.

Professionalism is not a hat trick you pull out like magic to fix problems or wow people; that's what Google is for. Biko folks, stop asking me the meaning of words when you see me or I'll just give you the same answer I gave the annoying street dude - 'Ask Google!'