Loh Contest #274: One Scroll Too Many

I have always been addicted to my phone, not today, not last year…but years back. That time of my life was when my phone and I were in a very committed relationship; we were inseparable. And if you want to punish me, then go for my phone. I don’t know if you’d even see the other side of me. Perhaps not to my parents. Lol, I knew the relationship wasn't a healthy one, not balanced at all.

So, on one of those afternoons, my dad gave me a simple instruction: “Prepare some food before I come back.”

Simple, right? Of course, it is. Is it not to cook, only?

I agreed with confidence - the kind of confidence people have before things go terribly wrong.

Where we lived at that time, our kitchen wasn't inside the house. It was outside but still within the compound. There was a large store for that purpose, shared by a few tenants. If you’ve ever shared a kitchen with different personalities, you already know the story: some neat, some messy, while there are the mysterious ones who would disappear whenever it’s their turn to sweep - most times, it takes a fight to get them to cooperate. Still, we managed to keep our own corner clean.

So I went to the kitchen, put the food on the stove (we weren’t rich enough to afford a gas stove then) and returned to the room while it cooked.

That was my first mistake!

I picked up my phone and lay down on our “sofa.” Honestly, it was more like the cushion was tired of life and had given up on it. If you lie on it, half of your body would almost touch the floor, and some parts would be your body lying on sticks. But there I was, actually, it was my favourite sofa, as if we’d been destined for each other. I was scrolling and watching, deeply invested in whatever was happening, and so I was carried away completely.

Minutes passed. Then more minutes.

So, this smell started coming into the house. But here’s the funny part - I didn’t process it. I casually blamed it on the compound. After all, there were mix of people living there, so strange smells weren’t a surprise anymore. I even thought, “Ah, maybe someone burnt, or they poured something and didn’t clean it well.”

Meanwhile, it was my food. An adage in my tribe says, “It’s my buttocks that I perceive a fart, not someone else.”

What phone addiction would cause! You’re physically present but mentally in another universe, and it takes something to jolt you back to reality. What finally woke me up was a knock on the door. My neighbour came to inform me about the food. I screamed.

That jolted me back to earth, like NEPA unexpectedly restoring light.

I rushed to the kitchen, and oh my… the food had burned so badly it was unrecognisable. The pot was black. The smell? It was the kind of smell that goes through your soul and stays there for character development. Everywhere was caught up in flame.

And as the universe would have it, my dad walked in. It was the exact moment, the perfect timing. Too perfect.

He had come home hungry, expecting to eat, take some rest and then head back out again. Instead, he met something else. A story that made me feel guilty. But he didn’t shout. He didn’t insult me. But you know, silence hurts more. I knew he was disappointed, not just because of the food, but also because he knew what caused it. A father who has known his daughter for a long time doesn’t need a crack in the brain to know the culprit. My phone was the culprit here.

That day was embarrassing. It was painful, but now, it’s funny. To this day, whenever food is on the gas, and my phone is in my hand, I remember the black pot and try to be careful. But sometimes mistakes still happen, don’t they?

_{Image is mine}