by Some memories remain indelible. Such memories keep flashing through one’s mind, regardless of the passage of time. This explains why I still nurse fresh memories of my first experience as a customer in a restaurant. That was several years ago, in my first year as an undergraduate. The restaurant was sited in “Malabor Republic”, University of Calabar.
I had been trained at home to ALWAYS wash my plates after eating. I expected that every undergraduate received similar home training before gaining admission into the university.
Therefore, I was innocently surprised when I noticed in that restaurant that customers were leaving their plates unwashed, after eating. I felt that they were being disrespectful to the cooks. I needed to do as I was taught at home.
Thus, I thoroughly washed my plates after eating. I kept doing the same thing each time I went to that restaurant, until the day I went there with my friends, Victor Necus-Agba and Eteng Williams Jones (now an honorable member of CRS House of Assembly). They made jests of me when I attempted to wash my plates. Victor and Jones were my closest friends in school. We were inseparable. But they said that they would keep a distance from me, if I keep washing any plate in a restaurant. They added that other students would start thinking that I was either a cook or a “plate washer”, if I continued that habit. At that moment, I recalled that people were always staring at me each time I did what I was doing. They must have been thinking that I was a real “mugu”.
I stopped going to that restaurant after that day. Why not?
Despite this, I won’t stop telling my children to always wash their plates after eating. When they grow up, they would learn faster than I learned, by the grace of God.
