The Gautrain and the Irate Commuter

Today I attempted to be a fulltime commuter on the much lauded Gautrain.

The morning stretch went pretty well all things considered. However, it was not faster than driving my car, not once I factored in waiting for the train and then the infuriating 20 minute wait for the bus in peak time. Apparently, the promise of every 12 minutes is not worth the paper it is printed on. Lesson learnt, walk to work from the station.

As for price, for me alone it is pretty comparable and prevents me from having to go to useless meetings thanks to not having transport. Should a meeting be very important, do not rely on the Gautrain system to get you anywhere. Once the small fry are back at school the car is much cheaper, faster and reliable.

All things considered I was still pro-Gautrain when I got to work.

But that was all about to change...

I happily pottered down to by bus stop – Number 15 on RB4 – conveniently located at my office gates. There I found a fellow commuter. I engaged him conversation only to discover he had been there for 30 minutes – so much for the 12 minutes promised during peak hours. As we stood along came a bus a block away neatly avoiding the route altogether. And then another one. By then we were both on the phone to Gautrain operations to utterly no avail.

30 minutes later I caught a lift with a colleague, leaving the frustrated commuter at the bus stop. I did offer him a ride, but he was adamant to take the bus if it killed him. I eventually arrived at Marlboro and hour and a half after I had set out and not in a good mood. The Customer Care Line has an effective means of stopping complaints, they just hang up on you.

I laughed at my husband when he regaled me with how while waiting to collect me at the Marlboro Station he had asked if he could use the loo. The loo is inside the turnstile and to pay nearly fifty bucks to pee is a little steep. They refused and politely suggested he urinate outside the Station entrance. Charming. Customer Care answered his call and assured him steps would be taken. A week later they had no record of his call.

This is South Africa so I don’t expect first-world customer service, but I’d like to have some.

The Pretoria Station was closed this morning too; apparently some entrepreneur stole the power cables.

Welcome to Africa boys and girls, and don’t trade in your car just yet.

My boss, Montblanc and the Gautrain

I just received an impassioned call from my boss-at-large. He believes utterly in the power of social media to correct all ills and solve the world’s problems. More specifically, to bring back the lost Montblanc wallet left on the Gautrain in Hatfield on Sunday between 3 and 5 pm.

I’d like to share his optimism, but my cynicism is crippling. Nonetheless, I am blogging, Facebooking and Twittering as requested in the vain hope that somebody will give a damn and return the bloody thing.

The chances are pretty slim, but I promised.

So…

If you happen to have picked up a black Montblanc Wallet on the Hatfield Gautrain this weekend, drop me a line won't you?

I need the brownie points.




Bugger! I just remembered I was supposed to be taking the damn thing today. I guess the desire to drive my mother's C-Class Merc, overwhelmed the part of me that wants to try public transport. What a pity.

Jack Frost and the pink earmuffs

Jack Frost paid me a visit last night, scratching his clawlike nails down my corrugated iron roof and awakening me with heart stopping terror as I imagined Edward Scissorhands peeling my house open like a sardine can. Those icy fingers trailed lovingly down my cheeks reminding me that while I had put electric blankets on the beds of my offspring, I still need to buy one for me. Thanks to the heat of their own beds all three small people slept in happy warm slumber while I froze my toes under two duvets, a dressing gown and two pairs of socks.

I happily purchased 20 kilograms of coal and an equally huge bag of wood (yes, I know I have in my garden, but it was cold and dark and I wasn’t in the mood to play axeman). The petrol attendant kindly put them in the car and off we went home. This is either where you laugh hysterically at the stupid woman who bought stuff she can’t carry or applaud the South African “boer ‘n plan” spirit. Small boy aged 9 and mother stared at the bags. We heaved, we lugged, we pulled and we tugged. About an hour later and much grubbier we got them into the house. The resulting flames were spectacular. I only wish we had peat or some equivalent, so I could keep it going in the morning. Oh or an AGA. I would love an AGA.

My people have rosy red cheeks that are dry and arid from the cold. Forget fancy face creams, I ended up with a huge jar of Vaseline (I felt myself having to explain to the pharmacist why I wanted it before realising that his mind probably wasn’t racing to the same conclusions as mine). Now I smother these little faces in shiny goop and it seems to do the trick. I feel horrible about leaving them at school in this weather while I sit in my warm office with the heater blowing on my feet. I know when I collect them I’ll have to turn the heater up just to be able to defrost them enough to give them hug without breaking them in two.

One last note on the weather, a quote from my beloved father:
“As cold as charity and that’s pretty glum.
As cold as the hairs on a polar bear’s bum.”
I think that pretty much says it all.

My spouse after a few set backs is now in Ghana enjoying semi tropical heat. Pah! Compromising on a complicated car exchange scheme I set off to drop said husband at the Gautrain station on Monday afternoon. I waved him off and did the inevitable school run. I despise listening to people blurb on the radio so it was a rare occurrence for me to actually listen to a traffic report that predicted ominous delays. I usually don’t because let’s face it I have to go home anyway.

I collected said sprogs and feeling unusually magnanimous I offered to treat them to dinner from KFC. Just as we were about to tuck into our clandestine feast who should call but the father of my children. Turns out SAA likes to make an extra buck wherever they can.

Let me break it down:
Say there are 200 seats on a plane, SAA will sell 250 tickets at full price.
On the day all 250 people may rock up or not.
Assume 50 don’t.
They don’t get a refund and SAA gets 50 extra tickets cash in the hand.
Now what happens when all 250 people rock up?
Chaos, murder and insanity.

Stewardess: “We are terribly sorry that the flight was so overbooked, sir. We’d like to make it up to with a ticket to somewhere you’ve never wanted to go. And because we are so sorry you can go by yourself and stay there forever, because the flight is only one way.”

So, not only do they screw up his flight, his meetings and my chick flick marathon, but they then offer a consolation prize that can only result in more money being spent on their airline going to waardiehekisekfontein! The bizarre thing is that they think its perfectly reasonable and even added on a 20% discount if I wanted to join him on his flight to nowhere. Perhaps I’m the crazy one, but I don’t think it’s much of an apology. Some extra Voyager Miles now that would have been fine, or an upgrade to Business Class on the flight the following day – something real.

Just did the trek downstairs and into the Arctic for a quick smoke. Come tomorrow I am fishing out Small girl aged 5’s pink earmuffs and damn fashion, I’m going to wear them.

John Wayne and the Sidewalk Showdown

John Wayne ain’t got nothing on me. I had to go to gynae (shudder here with horror) yesterday. Of course I didn’t phone before I go there and some woman chose my appointment to go into labour. Honestly, how selfish is that! So the horror was postponed a few hours much to my relief. The good news is I don’t have cancer and am revoltingly fertile. I don’t whether to be proud of my body’s biological imperative to breed or mildly ashamed. Regardless I am glad my spouse agreed to be snipped. Not that it was without its challenges.

Spouse: “But, you can’t serious, it’s so invasive!”
Me: “You want invasive!” voice now tinged with hysteria, “You want invasive? Try natural childbirth three times and I’ll give you @#$%* invasive!”

The bad news is that my uber-fertile ovaries have mass produced ova and refuse to suck them back again so I have a bleeding cyst on one – the source of the acute pain that led me to the Sunninghill ER in my pantoffels during the Royal Wedding. And now for the really bad news, I have to face the doc again in 6 weeks! Horror.

Admittedly, Dr Mseleku at the Parklane is a dream of a gynae. She is beautiful, well spoken and… how can I put this without sounding sexist… um, I can’t… she a woman. My previous one was the very same who delivered me unto this world almost 35 years ago. He has an eye that doesn’t work, so it stares unblinking and blindly at you while he performs mediaeval torture with a pair of braai tongs down below. Also I think he is the far side of 80. Malepule didn’t try to book me a Caesar to fit in her golf game when I was pregnant and gave me an enormous amount of support in my desire to have home births. Basically she tries to make the whole procedure as comfortable as possible, which let’s face it isn’t.

Today’s challenge: Buy soccer boots, shin pads, school socks and assorted soccer gear and deliver to Small boy aged 9 before match. It was a mad whirlwind rush and as usual me in a sports shop fills me with dread. I know people can see the neon sign on my head saying, “Sportphobe!” I feel more out of place in the Adidas store than in Builders Warehouse. That’s saying something. And yes, I went to Adidas because it is in the Mall and close to work. The shoes are divine – called Predators! Awesome, they should give my chap some confidence.

Next stop was the school swap shop run by scary PTA mothers. Of course I couldn’t escape with just the socks. Oh no, that would be too easy! I had to agree to scarves too and narrowly avoided having to purchase braai tongs with a built in torch and a toolkit. It was worse than going for a facial. By the time I rushed through hallowed halls of learning in search of my son I was retail wreck. Do you know they lock the little buggers up in there? Do they think they’ll riot or try to escape? I have no idea, but it makes finding your son in that warren an absolute nightmare. Still Small boy will be kitted out in time for his match against KES. I just hope mhe makes it home alive, I’ve heard things about KES boys.

It occurred to us as parental providers of exorbitant school fees this morning that we could hire a fulltime teacher to educate our children at home to the UK syllabus with individual attention for less than we pay now. Private schooling here in sunny South Africa, is not a luxury it is an absolute necessity. The fact that no government minister would send their child to a public school says it all. They educate to the lowest common denominator. So as parent you just have to find a way to afford education even to the point of funding Olympic size water polo pools.

I have a theory about all this. I think our new government has learnt from the old Apartheid Boys. Education gets people thinking. Thinking leads to questions. And no-one wants to answer those. So while the elite get fatter and richer, the poor get leaner and poorer with no way out. Let’s face it they want everyone to believe the blither and blather they spout as Gospel truth. Our President tells them that voting for him will get them into heaven! What has he got an All Access Pass to the Great Almighty? Then again they planed acres of porcelain loos across the fields so maybe he has a dedicated line to the Pearly Gates.

I almost forgot my morning’s most exciting episode, which given the state of my life is not saying much. Sitting in the morning traffic at the corner of Glenhove and Oxford Road I was just puffing away on my smoke, chatting to the newspaper seller and bopping a bit to Kid Rock when all of sudden… bah, bah BAH!

Two men one with a half brick and one with a bit of pipe launched into the traffic. As this took place directly in front of my car I had a ring side view of the action. Brick Man was livid with rage and determined to beat the hell of Pipe Man. Pipe Man was perfectly happy to oblige.

Pipe Man’s Sidekick tried to defuse the situation and managed to get Pipe Man to turn back to the sidewalk. Brick Man cracked and let fly the half brick. I followed the trajectory with slow motion tracking as it narrowly missed my windshield and paintjob. It nailed Pipe Man right on the noggin. Once he had regained his footing, Pipe Man was ready to unleash the monster within.

For a moment, a split second, I debated getting out the car and telling everyone to chill out and have a smoke. Then I realised it was stupid white girl thing to do. By the time I got round the corner the little melee had attracted quite a crowd, taxi drivers and their passengers, the entire construction crew of the Gautrain station and other odd passers by. No-one seemed inclined to interfere much, so I let them get on with it and went to work.

After that work seemed positively normal.