Service

Exclusive Books Hyde Park left a message on my phone a couple of days ago informing me that a book I had ordered had arrived. I was surprised, given that I’d ordered this novel one year and two months ago.
Evidently, even at the time I did not have much faith in this organisation’s ability to get me the book I desired as I ordered it from Kalahari and it lies about half read on my bedside table. Glad they don’t supply medical oxygen or blood for operations.
Today I ventured out to collect my garage card, about two months after I’d been sent a text message to do so. Banks that open at 9am and close at 15.30 need to be killed and shot for their deliberate policy of causing maximum inconvenience.
After searching through piles of uncollected bank cards – obviously belonging to people who bloody work during banking hours – the attendant finally located mine in the “naughty, disobedient clients” pile and told me I was ‘lucky’ it had not been ‘destroyed’. To demonstrate my relief I coughed at her and walked away. Let’s see who’s lucky now, punk.

Lazing

I could get used to lying around. Seriously. It’s worrying how much I enjoy doing nothing but watching Simpsons episodes and napping. My aims are small right now: take less medicine by Sunday, stop having night sweats and stop looking up symptoms on the Internet. Yes, I can now see that gainful employment is not simply a ‘nice to have’ for me. The sanity is precarious. Right, time to check out Ananova.com’s Quirkies. Mmmmm, crazier people…

Adios

A proper post, including perhaps the highs, lows and general craziness of the past 4.5 years at my former workplace, needs composing now that I am a former employee. That will come, I am sure. For now I shall just wish myself ‘bon voyage’ and try not to cough myself to death.

blocked brain

Sickly.
Unable to think of much besides mucous.
Oh, and how I’d like to drive a stake into the fat, black hearts of my colleagues.
Oh yes, grumpy and mildly mad, too.

Everyone’s a critic

I met a former talk radio presenter yesterday who now runs a radio station for a very large corporate entity in SA. The guy resembles Alex Jay circa 1989, minus earrings (I think – I didn’t look at his ears enough, evidently) and Jay’s overwhelmingly annoying persona which he adheres to to this day.

I’d listened to him a fair bit a few years ago and always enjoyed his shows, a fact I made known to him. He then proceeded to say how he’d always enjoyed being told people liked him, but his most memorable incident with a member of the listening public was when a short, middle-aged Indian man come up to him and say, “Are you xxxxx?” The presenter replied that he was indeed the said person.

“I fucken’ hate you, man!” retorted the dude before walking away in disgust.

Radical honesty is awesome!!

South Africans start talking about the weather again

An upsurge in talking about the weather has been recorded in offices across South Africa as citizens returned to their workplaces on Monday, no longer the proud hosts of the Fifa football World Cup.

Carefully studied CCTV footage has distinctly shown colleagues yelping to one another, “Jissis, it’s cold!” as they sip their morning mugs of Frisco. Further investigation has revealed yet more utterances of, “Jissis, it’s cold!” as office workers gather around computers to watch PowerPoint presentations of scenes from the tournament set to ‘Wavin’ Flag’, and another bout of, “Jissis, it’s cold!” as they prepare to leave for the day.

Spokesperson for government pressure group, We’re for Climate Conversations and General Weather Talk (WFCCAGWT), Mrs Francesca Janse van der Poggenpoel, said a dramatic drop in the number of conversations containing the words ‘cold’ and ‘witch’s tit’ during the World Cup was noted, prompting the group to launch an email campaign calling for a more concerted focus on the weather.

“We have only about 1.5 months left of being able to inform Pick ‘n Pay cashiers and our hairdressers how cold it is, being winter and all. After that, our focus will turn to how hot it is, being summer and all, and how rainy it is,” Janse van der Poggenpoel explained.

“Time is flying, it’s a small world and it’s always in the last place you look,” she asserted, as she drew her coat more firmly around her and craned her neck to hear the radio weather report more clearly.

At the same time, South Africans have been urged to wear their yellow Bafana Bafana supporters’ jerseys to work this Friday, and to wave their  “Winter…Ke nako!” flags, in order to raise weather-focussed conversations to levels last seen in the winter of 1994.

The COOLth factor

Last night, I was cool.

In fact, last night a group of four of us were super cool and trendy.

But only last night.

How I know this is because the four of us congratulated one another for being cool and trendy, and true cool and trendy people don’t do that, as a rule.

Last night, to celebrate the final of the football World Cup, we gathered at the exclusive Randlords, on the 22cnd floor of a building in Braamfontein, offering spectacular views of greater Jo’burg.

We arrived in time to watch the sun dip below the horizon, and this fearsome and demanding city begin to shine brightly. And to see the giant calabash, Soccer City, getting ready to host the final of what’s been a phenomenal experience for South Africans.

Jokes about being cool aside, the place was comfy and surprisingly emitted an extremely hospitable vibe, as patrons camped out on blankets on the floor and ate tapas-type food while we watched the Spain-Holland final. Being able to see the fireworks at the end of the match from the venue, rather than on TV, was unexpected and fantastic.

If you want to hire the entire place for an event, you’ll need a cool R100 000. If you want to visit for lunch, however, there’s no cover charge.

A truly memorable experience – I am so heading there for lunch one of these fine days.

********

On an entirely different note, I visited my friends yesterday morning who announced that they were expecting a baby. I had this couple over to my flat for dinner in December, along with another couple, both of whom announced that they were sick of the pressure to conceive now that they were married. They vehemently asserted that they just wanted to hang out each other and live their married lives without a baby for a while.

They were both pregnant, not six months later.

People talk such shit, most of the time.

Honesty is forbidden.

Of dirt and birds

Today, after two years of quiet pestering, David, the office’s car-guard-cum-cleaner-cum-car-washer finally convinced me to pay him to wash my car. This followed a year of sneering disgust painted on his face upon seeing my decidedly off-white car approach this office, day after filthy day.

My thinking was as follows: I leave this office in two weeks’ time, and the chances are good to great that David won’t demand that I let him wash the car between now and then.

Also, I could no longer see through my windscreen any longer, and was almost driving into pavements and people, as a result. So opaque it was that I almost *wanted* those awful squeegee dudes camped out at the Grayston offramp to do their smearing routine on my windscreen.

David has managed to wash off about two-thirds of the dirt, which I suppose is better than a punch to the guts. And I, dear reader, have contributed to his standard Monday morning hangover.

I wish to leave you with this marvellous story that made me gurgle with laughter:

COCKATOO SUMMONED TO AUSTRIAN COURT A cockatoo made a court appearance in Austria Monday, after having been summoned in a lawsuit over the state of its health, a spokesman at the Klagenfurt regional court confirmed. Seppi’s "testimony" was to fly in a large hall to find out whether the animal is lopsided when airborne, as its Danish owner alleges. The Danish man is asking an Austrian breeder to return the purchase price of 12,000 euros (15,000 dollars), as he says the black-feathered bird suffers from chronic gout. Seppi conducted his test flight in a closed session. But when the male bird took to the air shortly before the court session, it crashed into a wall, Austrian press agency APA reported. A veterinary expert is set to provide an opinion in the coming months, based on the cockatoo’s flight skills and medical tests. Seppi is a red-tailed black cockatoo, a species native to Australia.

Viva Paul and España

Paul, the prophetic calamari, wins again. Love that octopus. Now, who will he choose between The Netherlands and Spain? On another football note, England’s Rooney and Germany’s Oezil share the prize for first place for the ugliest players at the World Cup. They commit
yellow-card offences just by looking at their opponents.

A Freudian slip of a girl

As I drove along the M1 highway between the Grayston Dr and Corlette Dr exits yesterday, I noticed that the once-bright flags of the Fifa world are looking somewhat shabby.

Nothing can escape the pervasive dust of a Highveld winter, most apparently the white sections of the Japanese and English flags, which are now a cheerless brown.

A little depressing.

The World Cup is almost a memory and perhaps it’s really just me, but it already feels like there’s post-tournament gloom a-gathering, despite there still being three matches left, and, of course, the winner to be crowned.

TV and radio news bulletins once again lead with stories of averted strikes and corrupt police chiefs. I find I miss Football Friday, despite only buying into it six weeks before the World Cup began. Yes, I am that fickle. Yes, I am that much of a joiner.

It’s been a pretty magical time. I’ve even had things to talk about with colleagues I’ve hardly conversed with in the past four years. Now it’s back to grunting at one another and making sure we don’t use mugs belonging to specific people.

Three more weeks of this, after which I am no longer an employee of this organisation.

This morning, a new person began working here. When I was introduced to her, I found myself saying ‘good luck’ to her just before she walked away. I’m hoping she’d stopped listening to me about the same time that I stopped caring whether or not she’d like it here.

In a move befitting this nepotistic office’s modus operandi, this woman is the daughter of another employee here, and it seems that the two will effectively be in competition in terms of the work they do. Could be fun to watch.

And finally, to end on a sour note, I made soup this weekend which looked precisely like KwaZulu-Natal swamp. I shall discard the wretched slop tonight and try again. Soup is beastly!