Never Walk Alone

Touching things to transform them into Gold had belonged to Legendary Midas. But surely, we have geniuses: people with an interesting imagination or a striking power of reasoning. This they would bring to bear on tasks assigned to them in a field, at long last filling observers with helpless admiration by lending flesh to skeleton; in real life, dazedly recreating Biblical Dry Bones! But then, how many geniuses do we have as part of our global population? What numbers of them are residing in our country, living in our states, dwelling in our towns or for that matter domiciled in the next building after ours? Yes, Geniuses are rather as few as animals headed for extinction: plants which shall soon cease to be seen around us owing to insupportable climate. Definitely, it is these geniuses who represent cases of One Head being better than Two. Otherwise, by far, Two Heads have always been more productive and more resourceful than One, even on mundane matters in a person’s private world.

In this regard, I am persuaded to recount first, an incident involving three women and dovetail to a useful conversion of the experience by one of them into a problem-solving tool on a career stuff.

The three women, Mrs. Ekundayo, Mrs. Gbadamosi and Eugenia were billed to attend their Village Patriotic Meeting in the afternoon. They had been informed in their previous one of virtually everything they needed to know about its venue, time and agenda. The modest bungalow of a member living some five kilometers away was the slated venue for the meeting and 1:00pm the scheduled time. Unfortunately, the women were already late for the meeting, having lost more than an hour to elaboration preparation for it. There had been long minutes by the mirror, wasteful seconds with lipsticks and longer seconds with the best headgear… Just imagine the ineptitude!

At last, Eugenia, doing all these singly, was forced to change her mind and undress herself. Choosing to appear at the meeting at such a belated moment would amount to intentionally distracting the attention of her union members already in attendance and deliberating on sensitive issues. Like Miss Eugenia Lamb, Mrs. Hilda Gbadamosi more than toyed with the thought of not showing up any more at the meeting for the same set of reasons. But in the company of her much firmer co-member of their union, Mrs. Ekundayo Mrs. Hilda actively began to nurse, hopes of offsetting the embarrassment which her belated appearance at the venue would create. Sure, an initial heartfelt apology to their union’s executive followed by her enduring contribution to other deliberation should melt The Ice-Cold Hearts among them.

So, it turned out that Mrs. Gbadomosi and Mrs. Ekundayo attended the program, surfacing at its venue much late. An unpardonable one hour behind-schedule before knocking at the front door of their union’s conference room! Inescapably, Mrs. Gbadamosi and Mrs. Ekundayo were tongue-lashed at by their Union’s Executive through their Chairman and made to pay a revised painful fine of N1000.00 for all latecomers. A bit to their consolation, they would not pay another revised more painful fine of N2000:00 for Absentees from a meeting. One could figure the motive then exercising the mind of Mrs. Gbadamosi intimate to Eugenia and living but three houses away from theirs. Literally, her heart was bleeding for Eugenia while her one thought was to pick her switched-off phone for a N1000:00 -saving call-advice to her to wave aside all losers’ excuses and still hit the venue of the meeting in lieu of ending up An Absentee and being penalized as such. In point of fact, Mrs. Gbadamosi had begun to head for her phone in her bag just for this singular show of true comradeship, when their chairman order her back to her seat with threats of implementing the unpleasant penalty reserved for unauthorized mid-course-a-meeting exit of a member in the end, Mrs. Gbadamosi had to stay right through the deliberation and was collectively asked by the house to offer her Closing Prayer after an adjournment of the meeting.

At home, Eugenia learnt of what had transpired and was moved to tears: a few trickles of hot ones rolling down cheeks of respect for the incurred expense. Seven Year Later, in 2016, Miss. Eugenia Lamb remembered this after graduation from School of Catering and it was time to set up a restaurant and profit by an acquired skill.

Meanwhile, another woman, Kemi Rose, also in her early thirties, had begun, all by herself, to run a flamboyant eatery in their Thompson Avenue Neighborhood. Simply marvelous, Kemi could bake mouth-salivating cheese cakes, pan cakes, Apple Pies, Danish Pastry, sandwiches, doughnuts as well as prepare fruit juices, cream puffs, Yoghurt milk, salad and lots more. Indeed, her versatility in cookery was such that she frequently crossed over to the boiling of rice, simmering of carrots, steaming of vegetables frying of chips and roasting of chicken. In effect, on one-to one basis, Kemi was a better cook than Eugenia. It was rather in the Frying and Roast of Food Items that Eugenia wielded incomparable skills while a Monica caterer colleague manifested as much unrivalled skills in Baking and Steaming. Thus, no likelihood of Eugenia or Monica outrivaling Kemi in Cookery, unless they yoked their skills together and pitted them against hers. Whatever Monica lacked in the area of Frying and Roasting Edibles Eugenia would make up with her prodigious talent in it while whatever the latter did not have or know in Steaming and Bakery she would supplement with her unsurpassed skill in the area.

Thanks to Kemi’s commitment to her chosen trade besides invested resources in it, customers were swarming the spot to order and eat the tasty meals she had on her menu while seated or standing, as in the case of working-class customers who must be snappy over break-time lunch so as to get as to get back to their offices in time. On the whole, business was brisk for Kemi and her prospects of expanding it soon quite bright!

However, that was only the case when Eugenia with Monica had not stepped into Thompson Avenue with their own joint business. Shortly after they had done so, the table turned. Simply turned! Not much of the enormous skill and versatility of Kemi Rose in cookery could be felt any longer. Rather her patronage of customers within the area began to dwindle, ebb, inexorably leaving a handful of her friends and admirers as those still frequenting her eatery. Kemi Rose’s nightmare appeared to have been ‘the nicer taste’ of very meal served customers in the rivaling restaurant of Eugenia and Monica, as the former concentrated on this and the latter on that!

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