I don’t remember exactly when I started keeping receipts, but it’s been a while.
It started small. A few supermarket receipts stuffed into a purse I no longer used. Then came shawarma night slips, ATM withdrawal proofs from trips that meant something, recharge card stubs from when data still came in scratch cards. Eventually, I moved them all into one place my old Royal Dansk biscuit tin. You know the one. Big, blue, and nostalgic. The kind that used to carry butter cookies until someone in your family replaced the contents with thread, scissors, and safety pins.
Mine had no needlework. Just receipts. Rolled up, folded, smudged, and faded.
Mummy, where’s the scissors? my cousin’s daughter once asked.
In the biscuit tin! I shouted from the kitchen.
She opened it, paused, then shouted back, There’s no scissors here! Just paper. Old paper.
I chuckled but said nothing. She wouldn’t understand. Even I didn’t fully understand. Why was I keeping a receipt from a random fast food joint dated two years ago? Or a transport ticket to a place I no longer had reason to visit?
I once tried to throw them out. I brought out the tin, took a deep breath, and hovered over the dustbin.
Then I saw a small receipt folded neatly in one corner. It was from that Wednesday in February the one I spent crying in a Bole spot, stuffing my face with grilled fish because heartbreak had knocked on my door again. That receipt had oil stains and a scribble: Don’t text him. I’d written it myself. I smiled, put the tin away on the shelf, and put on some water for tea.
I'm not an hoarder, per se. I prefer it tidy, and I dedicate three months to cleaning out my wardrobe. I delete photos ruthlessly. I give out things I no longer use.
But those receipts? I can’t seem to part with them. Maybe they’ve become tiny memory holders proof that certain days happened. That I once felt something. That I lived through it.
I once showed my friend the tin.
She laughed. Wait so you’re not keeping money in here? Not earrings or bank forms? Just receipts?
Yeah.
She opened it again and held one up. What’s this? ₦2,000 from Chicken Republic.
That was the day I got my first freelance paycheck. I celebrated with rice and bought data like I was Dangote.
She chuckled. You’re mad.
Nutty, I corrected.
Same thing, she said, still laughing.
Maybe I am a little nutty. I mean, who keeps POs ticket from 2020 just because one transactions didn't go through, and had a conflict with the provider.
There’s also a fuel station receipt from a day I had exactly ₦3,000 in my account, and I was praying my nepa wouldn’t embarrass me. I didn’t plan to make it a habit. But the tin now carries years of little things no one else would think twice about.
A ₦700 receipt from a pharmacy where I bought cough syrup and accidentally told the pharmacist I was fine, even though I was wheezing like a broken radio.
A crumpled ticket from a trip to Aba where I didn’t get the job but gained a story and free meat pie.
Even a paper napkin with “thank you for smiling today” written on it from a random café. That particular day, I gave the waitress a huge tip since I witnessed a very pregnant woman moving throughout the restaurant with an air of solemnity still upon her person.
Then there’s the tiny faded receipt from a supermarket run with my mum. She was picking items and arguing over Maggi prices, and I took a photo of her mid rant. It was our last real shopping trip together before she got sick. I’ve kept the photo. And the receipt.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s just my way of holding on. Not to clutter, but to moments. To memories that don’t make it to Instagram or journals.
One time, a guy I was dating found it while looking for a pen.
Ah, babe, what’s this? he asked, lifting the lid.
My memory tin, I said casually.
He flipped through a few. You’re keeping POs receipts?
They all mean something, I replied.
He didn’t understand. I didn’t expect him to.
The biscuit tin isn’t pretty anymore. The biscuit tin isn’t pretty anymore. That lid would never fit, with chafed edges and all. Quietly, it sits in a corner of my wardrobe holding proof of those utterly ordinary days, dramatic ones, joyful sparks of time, and some deep sad moments.
When the present is really heavy and the future is very hazy, I do not open the tin to read what is in it; I rather open it to touch. I pull out one of the slips and softly rub it between my fingers.
Remembering. Remembering the day I made somebody laugh.
Remembering the time I danced in a kitchen all alone with a shawarma in one hand and juice in the other.
Remembering the heartbreak, yes, but most importantly, remembering how I survived it, at least one greasy fish receipt at a time.
So maybe I am a little nutty.
But in a world that moves too fast, I’ve found a way to store time.
I stop collecting the madness when recicept wrip off due to poor printing, and at least my madness fits neatly into an old biscuit tin, I miss having it and I think I will resume collecting it once more.
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