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Living and loving it: Things that annoy me

And angry woman. Photo/shutterstock 

What you need to know:

  • He goes to have it worked on. You wait and hope that the people around cannot hear your stomach growling

One: There are five of you standing in a queue, waiting (impatiently) for your turn. You shift from one foot to another, stifle a yawn and hope that the person at the service point can read your mind as you look at her, longing for her to speed up the time spent with each customer. Then someone comes barging in past all of you, puts money on the counter and asks for what he needs. The five of you look at him incredulously, wondering why he thinks you are not in as much need of a quick service as he is. He does not budge or even look embarrassed or sheepish. Worse still, the woman at the service point actually attends to him! 

Two: It is a busy day, with many errands to run. You know you need to manage your time well in order to get the all 5,215 things you need to accomplish, done in the nine hour span within which offices are open. You call one of the people from whom you are supposed to pick an item, which item is necessary for you to carry out half of the 5,215 things. You let them know you are on the way to meet them and it will take you about 30 minutes to get to her. She tells you, she is at the venue waiting for you. Along the way, a traffic jam, most unexpected pops up. You call and tell her you will be delayed by 10 minutes. She says it is fine, she is going nowhere and will be waiting to receive you. You finally make it, thank goodness, on time. You get to the venue. Not only is she not there. Her shop is locked up, and there is no sign of activity. Confused and a little irritated, you call. 
“Are you there?” She asks. 
“Yes,” you reply.
“Okay, I shall be there in 10 minutes,” she says.
You ask her why she said (lied) that she was at the venue and she tells you she thought she would actually be there but was delayed. She insists you should not worry and she will be there in 15 minutes. Even as you hope, you can hear a little voice at the back of your head saying you will be lucky if she gets there in 30 minutes, which crashes your well-laid plans for the day.

Three: Hungry and ready to demolish a plate of food, you walk into the restaurant, sit, and pick the menu. You take your time reading through it as you are not quite sure what you want. Ten minutes later you make up your mind and ask the waiter for a chicken dish. He lets you know, unfortunately, they are out of chicken. You pick the menu again and settle for something with fish. He goes to have it worked on. You wait and hope that the people around cannot hear your stomach growling. Finally he comes through and says they do not have fish either. Tired, starving and with little capacity to argue, you ask for what is actually available. He tells you the items and you settle for rice and peas. Some minutes later, he brings your plate of food. Relieved, you put your phone down as you wait to dig in, only to notice that there is rice indeed but the sauce is beans. You mention that to him, thinking he misheard you or somehow got the order wrong.
“Madam peas is over…” he says when you ask as he continues to put down the food and lay out the cutlery, expecting you to just have the beans. What if I really do not want beans? What if I have do have an allergic reaction or are intolerant to them? Why would you not ask me first if I could indeed have them instead?