Butt exposure

When I received my NYSC-supplied trousers, they were 3 sizes too big and dangled 2 inches off the ground. But I couldn’t be bothered with amendments so I held the trousers up with the belt they supplied and pulled up my green stripped socks to hide my skin. (I know, I really need to outgrow this "I don't care how I look "phase) You’d never have known my uniform was big unless you were passing by the day I was walking down a street in Wuse Zone 3 and my belt …gasp...unhooked itself. The yeye khaki raced for the ground, but I managed to catch it before it exposed my sacredness.

I guess you could say, I don’t hear word, because five months earlier during orientation camp, I stood up after a stimulating conversation on the parade ground and… Well, let’s just say I suspect my male friend caught a brief view of my pant but kindly pretended not to. That obviously wasn’t enough to scare me into re-fitting the trouser and jacket that I felt should have fit properly in the first place.

But seriously, what’s up with NYSC giving us uniforms without even a glance to see if it’s remotely close to our size? When collecting my uniform on camp, I felt like a kid standing on the lunch line, collecting a packed sandwich—without a choice of turkey or ham. They reach into their pile, pull out a uniform and hand it to you. But in fairness to them, collating and sorting 7-piece uniforms for more than 100,000 corpers, is not an easy feat. So the uniforms run big to leave room for amendments.

Naturally it means girls get uniforms that are too big while big guys get tight uniforms –very unflattering to their bellies I must say. Some men can’t wear their boots or sneakers because they’re too tight. My problem is the reverse: My boots are a size 43 and I wear a size 40. Some peeps swapped shoes, while most gave their uniforms to the tailors who were eagerly waiting to adjust uniforms at prices that would sew a new pair.

I tell ya, get 2,000 humans together in a facility with no facilities and it’s not just a 3-week orientation camp, but a job generator for at least 100 people willing to cater to the teeming corpers.

So after my parents teased and warned me about further butt exposure, I finally gave in to refitting. One is a shot of my NYSC Khaki trousers after the amendment. Still too short, I went to the market to look for fabric and got one custom made for my 35-inch inseam. Nice upgrade ey?