To this day, I still wish I had video-recorded the scene to serve as evidence before attending to the clothes, but the deed had been done, and the only witness I had could not prove my innocence.
In the middle of June 2023, after I had delivered the heap of clothes I did laundry(ironing only) for Mommy Joseph, one of my regular clients, she called to inform me about a burnt shirt among the heap of clothes I had worked on.
"Ohhh! I forgot to tell you. You're referring to the newly made green native top, right? I saw the burnt spot, and I wanted to inform you, but I totally forgot. That wasn't me at all. The person who ironed it before did that, and maybe you didn't notice it." I tried as much as possible to respond calmly against her angry tone.
"What do you mean by the person who ironed it before? Have you not been the one ironing our clothes for the past four months?
"Mtcheeeewww !" She hissed and continued in a more shouty tone.
"Don't even go there. This shirt is a new one; I just collected it from the tailor, washed it, and decided to include it in the bag." I could hear the peak of anger in her voice. I could feel that she was pointing at the clothes on the wall as if I were there; I could feel she wanted to squeeze the clothes into my hands and send me to find a way to remedy the situation. But how could I just accept responsibility for something I didn't do?
"Mommy Joseph, calm down. I saw this spot when I was ironing the shirt. I pointed it out to my friend while I was ironing, and I wish my friend could testify to that as a witness. That shirt was burnt by the tailor who sewed it, but they didn't inform you. Come to think of it, the time I mistakenly removed a net from your husband's shirt, didn't I inform you after fixing it?" My voice was at its highest; my anger was brewing because I felt accused.
She angrily ended the call, and I couldn't believe what I had just been accused of.
"Haaaa! Why didn't I video-record this thing when I saw it?" I angrily hit my leg against the heap of clothes in front of me as I muttered.
While I was trying to cool off, my phone rang. I checked, and it was her again.
"Hello, M..."
"I just called my tailor to ask them if they burnt the clothes, and they said no. Kingsley, you intentionally burnt my clothes and decided to lock up as if nothing happened."
"Stop it there..."
Before I could fire back at her, she ended the call and turned off her phone. I dialled multiple times, but the line kept informing me that her phone was turned off.
At that moment, I wasn't interested anymore to continue being her laundry person; I just wanted to put some sense into her head for thinking I could behave that way.
I checked time and it was 5pm, I locked up the iron bars protector in my shop, walked to the road, stopped a bike, and headed to her house. All through the ride, my mind was burning with anger; I just wanted to get to her house quickly to see if she could have the guts to say all those things to my face. I felt as though some external force was pushing her because Mommy Joseph is someone I had known for a while, and we had never rained annoying words on me before.
Immediately we arrived at the compound, her two sons, Joseph and David, were playing football, and as soon as they saw me, they began to echo in unison:
"Uncle Kingsley! Mommy is not home!"
"Uncle Kingsley! Mommy is not home!"
With the way they were saying it, I knew she was inside and had probably told them to tell me that she wasn't around.
"Mommy is not around, keh? Where did she go?" I questioned them from the top of the bike I was on while dialling her number to see if it would connect but the number didn't connect.
"I don't know where she went. She's not at home," Joseph, the eldest(around 10years old), responded with his face turned to the ground.
"Mtcheeeewww! Oga, please take me back," I tapped the bike man, and we drove back.
While on the way, the bike man kept laughing and asking me what was happening because it was obvious that the person I was looking for was inside and had told the children to say she wasn't at home. I knew it too, but I just waved off the topic from the bike man.
When I got to the shop, my heart was still burning with anger. I settled down and composed a 2,000-word message to her on WhatsApp, elaborating on how disappointed I was by her accusation against me and how I regretted failing to produce video evidence of the error because that was the only evidence that could prove me innocent. After all, my friend, Mr. West, who was a witness, would not be believed.
From that moment, she stopped giving me her clothes to iron and also seized the 20,000 naira that was remaining between us.
Honestly, I wasn't pained by the loss. I just let her go.
Thanks for reading
The photos used are mine, but that's not the burnt shirt