Taming Sherlock Holmes...Or Not

“Daddy and Mummy are back!"

“Ei, we’re finished!” I whisper-yelled. “Do you remember how they disconnected it?”

“Yeah, I remember,” My sister said, sprinting to disconnect the TV wires and all that had previously been disconnected. I watched frantically but safely at a distance.

“Do let’s rush and do as if we were sleeping.” My sister is done at this point and we run to our beds like our life is one the line, which in actuality it is and squeeze our eyes shut, fighting and our breathing to return to normal. Just when we hear the faint sound of the front door closing, a sickening realization dawns on me.

“Nikky!” I whisper-yelled.

She grunted in annoyance, still with her eyes shut. “What is it again, Tess? Why are you disturbing me as I’m trying to sleep?”

“Did you remember to remove the cassette from the DVD?” Her eyes open immediately and as we stare at each other, horror painting our caramel skin a sick shade of green, we realize that we are well and truly doomed.

Writing this little story brought smiles of all proportions to my face. I was assailed by stories like this and other similar stories like this that were poignant to my childhood. This particular incident, for those who want to know ended badly, quite badly for us. And no, the DVD cassette wasn’t at all what you’re thinking. Lol.

So my parents were quite the characters fr. For anyone born in my generation, you know that apart from the normal DSTV, shows that characterised our childhood were ones like Barney, Home Alone, Spy Kids, Baby’s Day Out(I know some of y’all are smiling atp)...and of course, Barbie. Now, like I said, our parents bought these cassettes for us so tell me why we were suddenly banned from watching Barbie because it had mermaids which my parents said were evil in it?

My sister and I were quite the orators back then. So we were like, “If it was so evil, why did you buy it for us in the first place?” But, of course, typical African parents would let you know with their mouths as well as their hands that it’s not you that will tell them what to do. So, in this case, the Barbie cassette was seized and hidden.

One thing you should know about this beloved Hiver as a child was that nothing was beyond my detective abilities. Lol. I will show you that as far as you didn’t bury that item in another state, Tessa will find it. Like beverages. Especially beverages. My parents still tease me about this “ability” of mine till today l, but I digress.

My parents left for a ceremony the next day. As usual we were locked in and given strict instructions on what needed to be done around the house, and what, for the life of us, we shouldn’t dare do. Like watching TV. We nodded like the angels we were, and as soon as we heard the car zoom away, Sherlock Holmes became my name. If I can recall and I do, I found it in 3.5 minutes flat. No exaggerations.

And if I was the Sherlock Holmes of our home, my elder sister was the James Watt or something. My Dad is an engineer, so when he'd disconnect the TV to prevent us from disobeying, you know he’d do a good job. But my big sister of 8 then would have all the wires reassembled and the TV running in 5 minutes tops. And for the nearly five hours of our parents being away, we would be in bliss.

Until....

Suffice to say that my childhood was pretty interesting especially where movies were concerned. There were things that happened and we didn’t need to be told before we knew what to do. Like when PG 16 is announced on the African Magic channel. My Dad’s stern glare would have us out of our seats and immediately racing for our rooms, that we were to be nowhere near the sitting room when kissing or intense hugging scenes were displayed. That Big Brother Africa (it was Africa then, not Naija) was prohibited in the household for both old and young and if we mistakenly stumbled on it, we should exit to the next channel with the speed of light.

When I went to my Uncle’s house in Lagos, I noticed that things were run differently. For one, my cousins and I were allowed to watch the Big Brother show. When I asked why we weren’t being chased to our rooms(earning a scathing glare from my cousins, of course), my very woke aunt said that things were run differently over here and that she didn’t stop her kids from watching stuff like that. She’d let them watch and advise them about the ills of that kind of life later. I felt seriously cheated by life not having that kind of experience. But somehow, and for several other reasons, I’m glad now that my parents weren’t that... liberal.

My parents weren’t that liberal and they made us know why from the start. Maybe they could have handled many of these things differently when it came to their strictness of what we watched but now that I’m an adult, I realize that I didn’tv miss out on much, plus listening more carefully to the shows we watched back then, my parents hating Nickoledeon and thinking it was corruptive was for good reason. We just didn’t know it.

Conclusion to this being that the world is getting crazier by the day and so called kids shows too. I don’t have kids yet so it’s not quite clear the format I’d use when it comes to their movie consumption. Love but firmness. Open-mindedness but not callousness and negligence. I think that’s a good idea to follow.

Jhymi🖤

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