System abusers and guys with camel-toe

I have been thinking about my teeny tiny political post quite a lot this weekend, and found myself wondering whether I'm really living in a country, whose population can be divided into those who abuse the system, and those who try to thwart their attempts (not to mention which group I would fall into).

It seems to me, in South Africa trust in one's employees is not the going trend. There are, in fact numerous more or less funny, but at the same time incredibly sad examples of ways to stop 'potential abuses'. My personal faves include the cashier having to buzz in an elderly matron-lady - whose office must be located at the back of the store or possibly downtown, because we are talking at least a half-hour arrival time to the cash point - when the poor cashier has punched in four plastic bags instead of the three we asked for, lest she embezzle the whopping 29 cents, or the guards in our compound having to carry special sticks (and not the good kind either) and touch them to every second light pole with a sensor, while on their rounds, to make sure they don't take any short cuts, or a guy in a safari-outfit, complete with shorts no grown man should ever wear in public because of their unfortunate camel-toe creating effect, standing arms akimbo watching ten other guys slave away planting on the piece of dirt in the middle of a roundabout (a monthly occurrence by us). In light of these kinds of situations I'm glad I'm my own boss. Or, well, that no one is the boss of me, technically at least, I think. God?   

Still, these thwarting measures don't just go for employees, various ones can also be applied to customers, one of which I frequently am, so these ones get to me. Before coming to South Africa I never realized how hard it was to judge a book, or in this case a magazine, by its cover. Every single magazine here comes neatly packaged in cellophane, making it compulsory to be versed in Cosmo-talk. How else will you ever know if the '100 ways to make your man purr' will teach you that trick in the bedroom that will help you to keep your fires burning into your nineties, making the mag a necessary purchase, or just tell you to stroke your man's ego every once in a while, which we all already know to do regularly anyway. For my R28 I could be getting a latte and a small muffin instead. 

I have never been able to understand moral compasses that tell their owners to go ahead as long as they don't get caught, but lately I'm also having huge problems with understanding the state or any other 'authority' as that moral compass. Well, even as a kid I never liked anyone telling me what to do, or curbing my behavior in any way (I always know best, even when I don't), and I have to be honest and say I don't think South Africa will succeed in what even my iron-willed mother failed in (I think I must have been grounded for about fourteen years in total during my wonder years).

In the near future, if you see a blond woman slipping off the cellophane covers of all of the Cosmos, Cleos, Feminas, Saries, and such, just to set the magazines back on the rack and stare at them, possibly at your local Checkers, or Pick n' Pay, please come say hello.  

Thank you for the opportunity to rant, all I need now is an amazingly bad book, and my week is set.