There are mountains… and molehills

THERE’S a modern saying: “The devil is in the details.” I don’t know where it originated, but all too often we ignore the bigger picture and allow ourselves to be diverted by some little detail. I was at a meeting the other evening and some of the members arrived late because they had been held up by tyre-burning protests on Baden Powell Drive.

I asked what the protesters were protesting about and somebody said: “Oh, the usual, I guess. Service delivery.”

I said I felt very fortunate to live in an area like Fish Hoek, where our service delivery has always been particularly good. “Ha!” snorted one angry person. “That’s what you think! The service delivery is disgusting in Fish Hoek. Have you ever been in the ladies’ toilet on the beach?”

I confessed I had never had occasion to go into the ladies’ toilet on any beach, but asked what was so bad about it. “It’s disgusting,” she repeated. “If you want to flush it you have to stick your finger through a little hole in the wall.” She has written off Fish Hoek as a place where the service delivery is poor because she had to stick her finger through a hole in the wall.

I am sure the people burning tyres along Baden Powell Drive have more serious reasons for protesting than having to stick their fingers through holes in the walls. Be that as it may, here is a regular visitor to Fish Hoek – my beloved Fish Hoek – who has written it off as a bad place because of a hole in the toilet wall. Or something: I have not experienced this particular hole, as I mentioned earlier, so I am not sure why it is such a monstrous problem to her.

I know people who have refused ever to shop at a particular store because the shop assistant chews gum. “It’s disgusting! It’s like talking to a cow chewing the cud!” Banks may offer the best interest rates and the lowest bank charges, but they will lose clients in droves because they have only two tellers on duty when there are four cashiers’ windows.

“You can see the tellers ambling about in the background doing bugger-all and there are two cashiers’ windows shut. They don’t care how long we have to queue.”

I have found the Fish Hoek service delivery to be exemplary. I have called to report electrical failures from time to time and always received help within an hour. I once reported a leaking sewer and the workmen arrived that afternoon to fix it. There was a loose manhole cover in the street outside my house that made a loud noise every time a car drove over it. When I reported it, somebody came immediately and stuck something like chewing gum under it.

I have, however, not experienced any trouble with sticking my finger into holes in the ladies’ toilet.

Maybe I should burn a few tyres in protest.

Last Laugh

Bill decided to do a major clean-up, so he put on his grubbiest clothes and set about raking the drive, sweeping the leaves, washing the car windows and clipping the hedge.

A passer-by admired his hard work and came over to ask: “How much do charge per day for doing maintenance work?” Bill thought for a moment and replied: “Actually I don’t get paid, but the lady of the house lets me sleep with her.”