The way Nigerian aunties calculate age on WhatsApp will be your undoing

My dear, I was just sitting in my living room in Peckham yesterday, drinking my tea, when my phone started buzzing. My cousin sister Titi sent a message in our family group. She said, 'Happy 50th birthday to our beloved Aunty Bose.' I looked at it and I said, God, when did I turn 50? I am 43. I am very sure I am 43. I checked my passport, I checked my birth certificate from UCH Ibadan. I am 43.

So I called Titi. I said, Titi, why you put 50 for my matter? She said, Aunty, Mummy said you are 50. I said, your mother is my elder sister. She does not determine my age. Titi said, but Mummy said she carried you when she was 12 and you were born in 1976. I said, your mother was born in 1974. She could not have carried me in 1976 at age 2. The maths is not mathing. Titi just went quiet. Then she said, well, Mummy said so. I said, tell Mummy I said she should check her own age first before she comes for mine.

See ehn, this is the thing about Nigerian families. Nobody knows anybody's real age. My own mother, God rest her soul, told everyone she was 60 for 15 years. When she died, we found her real age in her Bible. She was 72. The woman was lying to God himself. And now the whole family has decided I am 50 because my sister said so. I am just sitting here wondering, at what point did I lose control of my own existence? Anyway, I have informed them that I am 43 until further notice. But they will still call me Aunty Bose the 50-year-old. Na wa oh.