Now here's one of those really, really funny moments in life:
I got back home just after 6pm last night, a Monday, and the day of the week Pikitup has decreed I shall have my meagre amount of rubbish collected.
In this suburb we all have the obligatory wheelie-bins, and Pikitup won't pikitup if it's not in the wheelie-bin. You get the picture.
On Monday evening, therefore, I usually have to trundle the bin down the drive after me to put it away at the back of the house. Not last night, though. It was gone.
An empty volume of air indicated a complete lack of wheelie-bin outside my house.
Walking up , and then some way down, the road turned up precisely zero wheelie bins.
Which was odd in itself- there's usually a couple still forlornly standing on the road awaiting the return of their owners, but not tonight.
I wondered if a wheelie-bin alien abduction had taken place. Would they probe the contents of my garbage?
Good luck to them, if so.
I was a bit angry - the wheelie bin must, on Joburg Municipality's orders, be replaced if lost or stolen by the owner.
(err..that's stolen by someone else, replaced by the owner)
I guess I was angry enough to wish, out loud, to do harm to the wheelie-bin abductors.
I wrote a polite email to Joburg Municipality informing them of my plight and requesting instruction on the way forward, and then I went to bed.
Some time after midnight, I heard the unmistakable rumble of a wheelie-bin being trundled.
In the morning, my bin was sitting outside my front wall, radiating innocence as only a 200l garbage bin can.
Well, sometimes it's useful to have the neighbourhood know you as a Witch.
In other hilarious news, a man who fell victim to crime in 2005 is suing our Minister of Safety and Security for "..denying South Africans their constitutional right to safety and security and freedom from all forms of violence. "
While I'm sympathetic, of course, I can't see that this guy has any sort of claim.
I mean, when did you hear of a government guaranteeing freedom from all forms of violence?
Perhaps it's time this dude learned that there is, in fact, no safety this side of the grave, and make his contingency plans accordingly.
Last laugh for this morning comes from a remarkably stupid chef, even for a celebrity, who announced that henbane "..made an excellent addition to summertime meals. "
Calling all Witches, Shamans and Herbalists - when you can stop rolling on the floor - would you like a job as tutor to a famous chef?
* Words courtesy Inkubus Sukkubus
Um ... i had my wheelie bin stolen. Phoned pickitup, who very kindly replaced it. 2 weeks later, it was stolen again. They didn't replace it. True story. :D
ReplyDeleteHave a great day.
aaarghh...sorry, Abraxas.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Terri
We have bins like that here. About the same size, Helen and I share one and it gets picked up once a month. Most folks here fill one or two every week.
ReplyDeleteSo it sounds like someone just borrowed it for a bit.
A few years ago my daughter woke up to see a man "in a cowboy hat" wheeling our bin down the road. By the time she was dressed, he, and it, were gone.
ReplyDeleteWe distributed circulars among the neighbours, asking if anyone had seen the rubbish bin thief. No response.
A few weeks later, she saw him up by the railway line, with a bin. Same hat. She and my son snuck up and took photos of him, then called the cops, who arrested him. He told them his father was building a house, and he was stealing bins to take the ballast he was stealing from the railway line to take to his father's house to mix concrete.
Of course he never brought the bins back, but just nicked another one. The cops said we should take the one he had been using, as there was no way of finding where it had come from.
Is it even SAFE being out as a witch in that part of the world? I've been hearing reports of whole villiages turning out to murder locals suspected of witchcraft. I take it your neighbors are of the more rational persuasion. Mine aren't, but I have a gun, which compliments my constitutional rights to not have to worry about such things.......
ReplyDeleteIt depends where you are in this country, Michale.
ReplyDeleteWe have a great body of activists called SAPRA who watch out for our constitutional rights - and in this country, that most emphatically includes the right to religion of choice. SAPRA has recently won us the right to have Pagan Priest/esses legally marry couples.
The "W" word is one fight they're also in the vangaurd of. There's ongoing blocking of legislation designed to put a stop to witch hunts by declaring witchcraft illegal-of all the absurdities!
Lawyers for Human Rights, SAPRA and the SA Pagan Council are working together to make sure such legislation remains dead.
But mundanely - yes, my neighbours are Christians but have been known to invoke the ancestors through the blood of a freshly-slain bull, so they have no call to be pointing fingers at me.
Love,
Terri