November 11, 2008
Looking back at the weekend that just passed, it strikes me as being quite odd how quickly times flies by and yet how much occurs in that time. In the space of just two days, it’s amazing how much took place (in a seemingly boring and comparatively uneventful weekend) and how many emotions were experienced.
This past Saturday (being November 9, 2008), Maimoonah and I were once again braced with the presence of her parents. Now contrary to normal perception and traditional feelings of unexplainable detest and enmity towards the in-laws, I actually enjoy the company of my wife’s family. Strange but true nonetheless. Perhaps it’s because her family are very humble and down to earth and a pleasure to be around or perhaps it’s because I’m just the accommodating, friendly type. Whatever the case may be, they spent part of their weekend with us on Saturday.
Before their arrival on Saturday morning, I decided that I should first attempt to sort out my cell phone contract problem, which became evident on Friday afternoon. The problem emanated from my wanting to change my debit order details for payment of the monthly contract charge, which is dependent on a combination of a fixed subscription and personal usage. My new debit order details were somehow incorrectly loaded onto their system and the payment of the monthly charge did not reflect on their records. The result? The suspension of both my contract lines. So off I was early on Saturday morning to the I-Talk Cellular head office near the beach front.
On arriving at the store, I was fairly surprised to see that there were already many people waiting for service while some were being seen to. Who would have thought that all those people would have the time to bring some form of clarity to their cell phone contract queries so early on a Saturday morning? That’s probably one of the downfalls of being part of the Monday to Friday, eight to five working class society I suppose. It weren’t long before I was attended to by a very friendly woman who did everything in her limited authority to assist me in whatever way she could. Her courteous and pleasant assistance was a far cry from what I had expected but maybe my high pitched tone, evident irritation, and occasional adjustment in voice pitch is what contributed to the hurried and unnaturally disorientated manner of her customer service. Not long thereafter, I manually paid the outstanding amount due to I-Talk followed by both my contract lines being reactivated and all further debit order issues resolved.
Leaving the store and thinking to myself how strange it is that so much effort is still necessary to achieve some form of clarity and peace of mind in a country that has moved from a situation of mass community oppression and injustice, to one of diversified social acceptance slowly embracing all forms of modern technology when I was confronted with yet another common South African irritation. A police cop writing out a ticket for failure to pay for parking. Pleading to him to give me break as I wasn’t parked for more than five minutes (which was a blatant lie), he assured me that if I did not move my car within the next ten seconds, I would probably be just as liable for a ticket as what the owner of the Audi was (gesturing towards the car parked next to me while slipping the ticket under its front windscreen wiper). Wow! Talk about close encounters with the unwanted kind?
It was a pleasant surprise to find my in-laws already at home when I arrived. I suggested that we start making a move towards the library as it closed at 12 p.m. and it was already 10:30 a.m. One might ordinarily think that one and a half hours is more than sufficient time to move from Sydenham to Westville (approximately ten kilometers) just to take out a few books, but you’d be surprised how delayed people can become from extensive procrastination or lack of urgency (a common characteristic amongst houseguests). The trip to the library was followed by a visit to the new Westwood Mall (opened between Westville and Sherwood, hence the name) where we met with my father in law. Uncle Yunus (being the deputy headmaster of Zakariyya Muslim School in Stanger) had to attend a school meeting directly after dropping his family at my place and assured them that he’d meet them later during the day, which is what brought him to Westwood Mall.
