Have you ever woken up in the morning feeling a little bit weaker than your normal self? Well, that’s what used to happen to me until five days ago.

It was a Monday morning, I had just woken up from my nine hours of sleep and I was feeling like I just cleared someone’s 20 hectare maize field. It was a Monday for God’s sake! Not that I had any job but I needed some energy, at least for eating and digesting the food. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, it happened last week for five days in a row. I was tired and the whole thing was getting a bit depressing. So, I woke up, and went outside to check on what mum was cooking, maybe that would brighten my day.

When I got out, as if on cue, our ever-noisy neighbour was fighting with her husband. If I had a gun, I would probably be in jail right now for double homicide. The two just never knew when to stop. Unfortunately, food wasn’t ready yet so I had to sit there and wait.

“Stop using boosters, Atake John,” the noisy neighbour shouted. I was able to hear this despite being oblivious to everything that was happening around me. The neighbour’s hubby was used to drinking himself to death but the man could still work like a bull on his daily small gigs.

So, despite having little joules of energy left in me, I went into the house, took the K10 I secretly stole from mum then headed for the market.

The walk to the market wasn’t easy but I made it. I asked around to where I could find some boosters and some jovial man directed me to a vendor at the far end of the block. The scruffy-looking vendor had some weirdly shaped bottles and sachets on his table. He greeted me and I told him I was looking for a booster, he smiled and told me they were available.

So, I took out my K10 and paid for a bottle of a booster labelled, ‘vubwe.’ It was my first time so the man instructed me to take the booster on a small tea spoon when I needed to use it. I never really understood what the man said next but when he was finished I happily left knowing my energy level problem would soon be over.

I walked for a while to make sure the market was out of sight, and then I gobbled half of the bottles contents, which was against what the vendor instructed, but who cares, I just needed to get rid of my problem faster. 20 seconds later I started feeling a bit of energy kicking in coupled with some dizziness.

I don’t know what happened next but I just saw the ground getting closer and closer to my face. Today I wake up in a hospital and mum is telling me that it’s Friday. I still feel weaker but at least a part of my body feels resilient, so I sat up to pin point where exactly. The towel of Babylon, OMG!

Tell us: What do you do when you don’t feel like your normal self?