Her husband, John, was until recently a banker. Fate had it hard on him when some misappropriations at the bank was found to have passed right through his nose and desk —of which though, he knew nothing about. Well, the bank never bothered finding out whether Mr John Obong knew something about the misappropriation or not. The board of directors of the bank rose from their meeting and charged him for negligence of responsibilities —and duties and incompetence to discharge functions.  As punishment, he was simply relieved of his functions as at the bank. That became the very end of his banking carrier.
Upon losing his job, his wife, Patricia —who until then was just a complete house wife— decided to use what was given to John as payoff to start a little trading in executive suits and corporate wears. Therefore, what she does now was go into the border between Nigeria and Benin Republic to buy her wears —wears that were smuggled into the country— which she thereafter takes to various corporate offices to dispose of. First, she started with John’s formal colleagues at the bank. Moreover, due to the good relationship that had existed between John and his ex-colleagues, they took it upon themselves to patronize Patricia.
The bank she went to that afternoon was actually the particular branch where John had just resumed before his sack. As usual, she had brought the clothes the previous day. So that after the banking hours— the interested customers amongst the bankers would pick their choices— and the next day, Patricia would go back, either to collect money for the selected items or take back her clothes. If they don’t like any, or if they took some and had no money to pay immediately as used to be the case, she would put down the debtors names and take home what was left of the clothes.

Yesterday, they had selected some of the clothes and had left many others, which they did not fancy. That was what had brought her to the bank in the afternoon, to pick up her clothes and money –if there was to be any. The total money she had collected for the little ones she sold - since some of them promised to pay her by weekend - was twenty five thousand naira. That was all that was in the shopping bag she had came out of the bank with –the rest being the what was left of her merchandise.
For the past one year, John and his wife have been surviving from what Patricia makes from her sales. Since losing his job, John has not been able to secure another one. Not that he didn’t or wasn’t interested in securing employment but it just does happen so often that he would be turned back the moment they made enquiries on his records. After a handful of frustrations, John decided it was time he became useful in the house. Therefore, he joined his wife in her trade. Although, he never went out to canvass for prospects or do the actual sales, but whenever his wife brought home the clothes, John would undertake the part of putting them into proper packaging, which also involves washing and ironing as the case may be. Some of the clothes would come rumpled and a little stain could be here or there, and therefore, necessitating a little dry-cleaning before they could go on sales.  To be sincere, John does these as though he was once a professional drycleaner. Since packaging is an essential part to marketing, John’s contributions to his wife petty business helped the business to grow in leaps.
Six months into the business, Patricia’s progress began to demand for more hands. Therefore, she decided to employ a helping hand, someone to help her with the actual marketing and sales. She discovered that if she could get two good sales representatives to complement her marketing efforts, then her sales would increase tremendously. After much consideration, she found that perhaps she might not at this stage be able to afford a salary for two, so sh e asked her friend to assist her in getting one trustworthy young woman for the position of a personal assistant cum sales representative.
The search took her friend two weeks. After which she produced a young woman she introduced to Patricia with a stern warning.
“The capabilities of our ladies nowadays —can only be equated with that of a bacterium cell,” she had said. “They are so capable of anything Patricia, anything.”
She insisted that from her experiences with ladies; they should only be given nothing more than benefit of the doubt as they are capable of many things, including snatching your husband once you are not looking.
“You know Patricia,” she repeated, when it seemed to her that Patricia might not have heard her the first time. “These days the capabilities of our young women can only be compared to that of a bacterium cell; such an unpredictable trait.”

Patricia took both the young woman and her friend Mrs Bankole’s, declamation with the benefit of the doubt. She took the girl home, and together with her husband decided that the girl should be staying with them during the weekdays and be going back to her people during the weekends. It was a strategy devised by Patricia to utilize the services of the young woman to the maximum. That was how she had been living with this young woman for the past three months. Since then, things have been moving on well between John, Patricia and her personal assistant Isika.

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