A LESSON ON PATIENCE
Miss Pax had a weakness, always in a hurry. Fortunately for her, she had parents who were always there to help cover up when she makes mistakes through her impatience. Good parents. They spoke to teachers and constantly settle issues for her when her impatience gets her into trouble. Her dad flogged her on several occasions as a child, but yet it did not curb her impatience. Once when she rushed off to school without taking her bath. Another occasion she almost burnt her mouth when she could not wait for the hot meat to cool down before eating it. As she grew to become a teenager, she twice did not allow the food she was preparing to be well cooked before serving it at the dining. This infuriated her mom who finally succeeded in curbing her of that error by denying her food each time she comes with half done food. Pax likes food, especially rice, cake, smoothies, tea, eggs, cereals and other delicacies, thus that punishment helped her adjust. She was a strong headed one. She was French, lives in a French speaking country and had spoken French all her life, just acquainted with little English.
She grew up, applied for a job in a company based in a foreign English speaking country. The requirement for employment is fluency in English language. Pax decided to quickly learn English so as to get the job. She was not ready to wait. She enrolled in a privately owned English language teaching school owned by a foreigner living in her French speaking country, he is Mr Toks. Mr Toks, a very gentle and patient man tested Pax English and discovered she would need about two years of constant practice to be proficient enough. Miss Pax was not ready to wait. She learnt the basics and proceeded to go on English using social media sites to chat people, prove her English and also prove Mr Toks wrong.
With limited knowledge of English language, especially still poor in spelling and appropriate words combination, she began chatting English speaking people online. Mr Toks discovered this and warned her. He advised her to wait for his permission before chatting in English. Mr Toks said, "Pax, mind what you say on social media as you chat, don't insult people on the social media, bad grammar can give wrong meaning on the social media, innuendos, puns, curious questions and I don't know stuffs, twisting people's speech, etc, can convey wrong meaning; social media is risky....." very nice, gentle and easy going Mr Toks advised Pax. She ignored him and continued on the social media. Many online noticed her very bad grammar, but chose to ignore it, knowing she really didn't understand the language well enough. One day she chatted a man online, wanting to address him as "man", she spelt it as "mad", not knowing she just insulted the man. Unknown to her, the man was a gangster and a computer maverick living in the same city with her. He was also a person prone to anger and rage. He promptly dug her up online and got her house address. He determined to give her the greatest beating of her life for insulting him. Pax was the only one at home the following day and was busy attending to flowers in the compound when she saw a man entering their compound. The moment the man spotted her, he began to shout at her, "you called me mad, what do you mean, I will deal with you...." and started running towards her. Miss Pax instantly recognised him as the man she chatted online and realised she must have erroneously insulted him due to her bad grammar. There was no time to explain, he was getting close, Pax left what she was doing and ran into the house, the man pursued her into the house still shouting with rage. Pax ran into her room and hid under the bed.
The man followed her into the room and started looking for how to drag her out from under the bed. Pax was afraid and started shouting for help. The man was pulling her legs from under the bed to pull her out. Three men suddenly burst into the room; Mr Toks and two other male students from the English language school. Fortunately, they were coming over to see Pax on some English assignment when they heard her cries and scream. They rushed frantically into the room, tackled the man and overpowered him. They calmed him down and asked him what the problem was. He explained. Mr Toks and the other men burst into laughter, they knew it was all a spelling mistake. They apologised to the man and told him she never meant to insult him, she was just a student still trying her hands on English language. It was an innocent error. Tearful and fearful Pax, ruffled, came out from under the bed and also apologised to the man. The man left. Mr Toks turned to Pax and said "remember my warning, I told you but you will not listen. Patience, patience, patience. Patient people avoid making mistakes"
Miss Pax learnt her lesson and since that day she became a patient person. That was how Pax was permanently cured of her impatience.
What are the lessons in this story ?
(C)Tosin Oke
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