Johannesburg – It has been pouring almost daily in Gauteng. In Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, the rains have been so heavy that floods destroyed roads, homes and schools, displacing thousands of people.
The rain, though welcomed, has been heavy and in some instances, as in the ones cited, destructive. Why then would people in some homes, complexes and estates still have their sprinklers on? Aft er a downpour the sprinklers, which are clearly still on auto, waste a very scarce resource – H2O.
This is the first category of behaviour that annoys the bejesus out of me. Related to this category are people who light up their homes as if it is Christmas.
Sure, the lights are lovely, but in the current environment of load reduction, rotational load-shedding and generators breaking down willy-nilly, why waste power by switching on all the lights in your home?
The third category is the one that plagues our roads and is likely to make your heart stop. One wonders how many close calls and actual accidents have happened as a result of this behaviour.
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I’m talking about the driver who first swerves to the left in order to turn right, or right if they are turning left. Have you not felt like your heart stopped for a moment when a car indicating to the right, takes a wide swing to the left before turning to the right? This behaviour must stop this year.
The fourth category is people who are in the services industry. Whether they are tellers scanning and processing your grocery payments, the salespeople behind the bakery, rotisserie or butchery, or the waiter at your favourite restaurant or the lady at your favourite vetkoek joint, the last thing you want to see is scratching, tapping, patting or rubbing any part of the face or body. Please refrain from touching your face, patting your head or running your hands through your hair.
Did I mention pinching your nose, adjusting or playing with your earrings? It is a long list, but this column accommodates a limited number of words and therefore it was a hard choice to choose only five. With Covid-19 and the many ways it has changed how we interact with others, there are still people who commit some major faux pause.
Most establishments have markers to ensure social distancing is observed. And then you find those hard-headed individuals who will breathe down your neck in a queue with their mask covering only their mouths. Or the shoppers who will touch all the bottles or cans before settling on one.
Or those that come so close to your car window whether at a filling station or at the robots sans masks. Ahem, my fellow citizens are a joy and a pain.
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