"looku looku" - An habit I developed while Growing

In life, moderation in everything is the best. Excessive use of anything is not good, it is either it becomes an addiction or exposes one to danger. We are a product of our environment, environment influences our attitude, thinking and habits. While I was growing up I picked a very bad but harmless habit which I termed "overlooking". Overlooking is excessive looking at a person to the extent that you forget yourself and just pay attention on others.

I developed this habit as a child while living with my parents at the village. Village life is always very interesting then, you have series of cultural events to watch such as masquerade festival, yam festival etc. I was always a good participant at these events which required paying full attention to the display of culture. I really enjoyed watching those events then and I never knew I was becoming an "overlooker".
After some years, I was brought to Mushin in Lagos to live with my grandparents and in Mushin there was no masquerade festival so I shifted my attention on anything that attracted my interested. If I see anyone pass by and there is something unique about that person I will leave what I was doing to look intently at the person and most times I get carried away to the extent that the person will noticed that I focused my attention on them. Several times, they rained abuses on me. I hear words like " looku looku", "lukmon", "look and live" etc. My looking habit got worst that I will not know when my lips got parted while I was watching people.

There was this particular incident that happened that I cannot forget. I and my mom were returning to our village for Christmas celebration and in Lagos then, we have to struggle to enter "molue"(long bus). We were waiting at the busstop with a lot of people and once the buses get to the busstop people had to push themselves to enter. While we were there, I saw a madman at the opposite side of the road playing and I forgot myself while watching him. My mother and her brother struggled to enter the bus thinking I was with them because they couldn't get a seat so they stood from Mushin to Oshodi. It was when they had gotten to Oshodi that all passengers alighted from the bus that they realized I wasn't there. So they had to come back to get me. Where I was, I didn't noticed that they left me, I was laughing at the madman when one woman mistakenly pushed me away while rushing to enter a bus that I became conscious of the fact that my mom was missing so I started crying and looking for her.
My Joy knew no bound when I saw my mom at the other side of the road coming to get me. Although she scolded me but I was happy that she found me.