The Nigerian parent who can find anything except their own phone

My daughter called me yesterday afternoon, her voice like she just saw a ghost. She said, Daddy, I have been looking for my ATM card since morning, I turned the whole house upside down, I am about to report to the bank. I just dey laugh small because I know this story too well. I told her, my dear, check your handbag. The small pocket wey you keep your sanitiser. She check am, the card dey there. She just say, Ah, Baba, thank you. Then she drop the call.

But the thing wey make me laugh finish na her own matter. Thirty minutes later, she call me back. She say, Daddy, Mummy just call me, she dey look for her phone. She say she don search everywhere, she use my brother's phone to call her own number, the phone dey ring inside the house but she cannot find am. I ask her, where your mother dey when she call you? She say, she dey her bedroom. I say, tell her to check inside her pillowcase. My daughter say, Ah, Baba, how you know? I say, ishe, I don marry that woman for 38 years. The woman does not hide her phone under her pillow, she hides it inside the pillowcase. Every Saturday morning. I don tell her many times, she just say I dey disturb her.

This is the same woman who can tell you the exact spot where you dropped your house key in 1997. But her own phone? She will call you from another phone to ask you where her phone is. I have observed over the years that Nigerian parents have a special gift. We can find anything for anybody. But our own things, na God dey help us. My son once told me that the secret is, we are too busy looking for everybody else's things. I think he may be correct. But I will not tell my wife that. She will say I am praising her too much and then ask me where I put her reading glasses.