Through life we wear two hats, at least. Make it a stetson and a beret. For instance, you're a pedestrian on the Zebra crossing in London and get very indignant if a motorist fails to stop but if you're the driver you want that pedestrian to wait for you to go by so as not to break your flow. It's the same with the green man at the traffic light: pedestrians just love that little guy, while the motorist drums his fingers waiting for the red guy to come up. And so on: when you're in the car, cyclists are a hazard; when you're on the bike, motorists are a menace and they're polluting the place to boot. The contrast is even starker in bureaucratic situations. You're standing in the bank queue (yes, sometimes you still have to do it). You've been waiting quite a while and let's face it there are only so many things to look at, like the tedious bank TV explaining all those great services that you mainly won't ever use. At last it's the turn of the person in front. You hope his business will be short and sweet and can't believe it when he breaks the news that he can't understand why he can't draw money from his account and the teller has to do an in-depth check. By now he's now blissfully unaware of the frustration simmering in the line behind. He just wants his problem sorted. Then there's the house buyer and the seller. For the buyer, there's stacks of houses to choose from and he can saunter through your place weighing up the odds. For the seller, you've dolled your place up and if he's going to invade it, the least he can do is make an offer, and quickly too. Just about any buyer will do. The American hatter, John B. Stetson was born in New Jersey and the QSL is from the Bell Telephone system in New Jersey, one of those beautiful cards they sent out in the 1960s, heard in Cape Town in 1969.
No comments:
Post a Comment