The Night I Lost My Last Nerve

There are nights you remember for love. Some for laughter. And then... there’s that one night, stitched into my memory like a badly sewn patch—chaotic, exhausting, and utterly unforgettable. So gather around, dear reader. If you don’t laugh by the end of this, please check your soul.

My name is Eli. I live with my husband, Tolu, and our toddler son, Junior, in a one-room house on the outskirts of town. When I say one room, I don’t mean “studio apartment” with cleverly hidden spaces and foldable furniture. I mean a room. A determined little box of a room that works overtime. It’s the Swiss Army knife of real estate: living room by day, kitchen by evening, and bedroom by night. Sometimes, if I forget to fold the laundry, it becomes a textile museum.

And that, dear reader, is where this saga begins.

It was a quiet Tuesday evening. The sky was behaving, the baby had eaten, and for once, Tolu and I had a plan: a little tea, a little conversation, and maybe—maybe—some alone time if the baby didn’t stage his usual 2am rebellion.

That’s when it happened.

Knock knock.

We looked at each other like two people caught committing a crime.

Tolu opened the door. There she stood—Mama Gloria. My mother-in-law. In a bold yellow Ankara wrapper, with her handbag in one hand and a bottle of Lucozade in the other, like a traveler returning from the Sahara Desert.

“Eheh, my children,” she beamed, “I was around the area and decided to pass by. I’ll just rest a bit and go.”

We smiled. But inside, a small part of me died.

The plan was simple: give her tea, talk small, wave goodbye.

But my village people said no.

At exactly 10:15pm, thunder began to rumble like ancestral drums. Then came the rain. Not the romantic kind. No. This was plague-level rain. A biblical downpour that shut down the entire neighborhood. No boda boda. No matatu. No Uber. Just thunder, lightning, and doom.

She looked outside, then turned to us.

“Eh, I think I’ll sleep here tonight.”

I felt my soul pack a small bag and leave.

Now let me paint the scene for you.

Our mattress is a 4x6—already cramped for two adults and a toddler with the sleeping style of a kung-fu master. We’d moved it to the floor after Junior rolled off the bed one too many times. That night, we gave Mama Gloria the bed, naturally. Tradition, respect, survival.

Tolu lay on the far edge like a refugee on borrowed land. Junior took the middle, claiming it like a colonial explorer. And me? I was clinging to the edge like a forgotten sock, dangling into the abyss. At one point, I gave up and sat upright, head leaned against the wall like a sack of maize.

Then, at 2:17am, the baby started crying. Not soft, cuddly crying. No. The I-want-a-banana-now-or-the-house-burns crying.

Tolu attempted peace negotiations. Junior slapped him.

I stepped in, but before I could even lift him, Mama Gloria popped up like a Jack-in-the-box.  

“Ah-ah! Don’t carry him like that! That’s not how we used to do it in my days.”

I wanted to ask if babies in her days didn’t cry in the middle of the night. But I held my tongue. I’m a good daughter-in-law.

At 3am, Junior peed on the bed. Naturally, he peed exactly where Mama Gloria lay.

She shot up.  

“Ah! Something is wet!”

I froze. Tolu fake-slept. Junior rolled over and resumed snoring. I considered pretending to faint.

By the time the rooster crowed, I looked like a survivor of a small domestic war. My back ached. My eyes were bloodshot. Tolu was on the floor looking like Moses after the Red Sea crossing. Junior? He looked fresh, like he just returned from a spa retreat.

Mama Gloria stood up, stretched, and smiled.  

“Eh! That was a good rest. You people, your home is small but very warm.”

Warm?

Ma’am, that was not warmth. That was four human bodies sharing the same 10 square meters of oxygen and ambition.

When she finally left, I turned to my husband, voice shaking.

“Next time she visits, we’re sleeping at the neighbor’s.”

To this day, whenever someone knocks after 9pm, I grab the baby and hide under the bed like a fugitive.

The End.

Story by: The Book of Eli (as told to @Tyro Rone)

Want a sequel? Just wait till you hear what happened the night my uncle came to “just charge his phone.”