The Scratched Rubber Paint.

I’ve always wanted to furnish my apartment just exactly how ladies of nowadays furnish theirs. I’ve never had enough money to rent an apartment but now that I do, I happily ordered for my pink shoe rack, my pink wardrobe and pink mirror shelf. Most rooms I see always have pink furnitures and I wanted mine to look exactly like that.

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There was no other color in my head to paint my new self contained apartment other than the white comon color.

I contacted Taiye, the most popular painter in the neighborhood. He’s not just a painter but someone who does any kind of work but since I saw a place he painted which he did well, I gave him the contract.

“Oga Taiye, I want to paint my new apartment but you’ll be the one to buy the paint because I do not recognize the difference between the original and fake. Then, you’ll also paint the walls for me,” I said.

Taiye is someone whom you can just jam on the street anyday or anytime so it was easy for me to locate him even though I didn’t know the exact place where he was living.
I made my findings and got to know that the wall paint which usually looks shiny is the satin paint while the normal one will still look good but dull. So, I called Taiye that I wanted the satin paint. I even sent him the picture on WhatsApp so he will confirm what I was saying.

“The satin paint is more expensive than the normal one. For everything including my workmanship fee, you’ll have to pay a hundred and fifty thousand Naira,” Taiye wasn’t done telling me the price when I screamed.

“Is this how much money these girls spend when they want to paint their apartment? Isn’t it too much,” Taiye only laughed at my question.
Truly, the money wasn’t the problem but I never knew painting was as expensive as that. I had other plans but since I wanted a perfect job, I still told him to carry on with the job.

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I couldn’t wait to start making videos of myself in my new room and on that evening, I paid Taiye so he can start work on the next day.
He started painting the walls in the morning and by evening, he was done.

“Hello madam, I’m done with the painting oh,” I was so happy. I was even planning to give him more funds for compensation but something happened.

Immediately I got home to check what he has done, he sighted me from afar and started packing all the rubber paints he used. I started to smell a rat. Why was he agitated?
As a fast thinker, I thought of what to do.

“Oga Taiye, I want to use those rubber paints so don’t take them away,” I said to him.

“No, you can’t. It is the right of the painter to take the rubber paints with them,” he said while holding unto those rubbers dearly.
I just knew something was fishy so I sighted a part of the rubber paint which Taiye had scratched away so I won’t see what was written on it.

I checked it well and even showed people around me and I later discovered that he bought the normal and regular paint instead of the satin paint.
Then, the most painful part of it is that he duped me of over forty five thousand Naira.

Instead of making assumptions, I headed straight to the paint shop where I had refused to go thinking that I was going to be scammed and I asked how much a satin paint is and how much the original is.

“The price difference between the normal paint and the satin paint is fifty thousand Naira. Which one would you go for,” the paint seller asked.

I’m smart but how come Taiye fooled me? I trusted him enough to be good at what he does but why did he lie to me? I turned back and went to the apartment.

I went ahead to my landlord who’s one if the community elders to report Taiye to him. After different arguments and troubles, my good landlord eventually sorted the issue.

“Taiye, you’ll have to return twenty five thousand Naira back to her and she will also bear the loss of twenty five thousand Naira,” he said. I could still bear that which is quite better than losing a whole fifty thousand Naira to Taiye.

I’m happy that I was smart to think that something was fishy and I found it out.