Hospitality

I just laughed as I wrote the title for this blog. I'll tell you why in a second...

First off, let me say I received my fourth marriage proposal for the year, and they weren't jokes, it was serious proposals. First one this year was by a Canadian Mormon who had been divorced twice already, the second one was by a security guard (R1, but he's R2 now), the third one was by a kitchen staff member at the bar I work at, and then this week there was number four. He is a 42-year-old British man, with lots of facial hair. He's never been married, and he actually stayed at the bar until we closed just to be with me, which is really sweet in a way, but I'm not the one for him.

Then, tonight, one of the guys I gave my number to at the bar finally got the strenght to text me, asking me very politely if I would like to talk to him. I'll keep it posted as we go along...

Now, back to hospitality.

Hospitality
A noun
1 cordial reception, hospitality

kindness in welcoming guests or strangers

OK, so I've seen a few examples of hospitality this past month regarding a lot of situations. The first one is of course the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup that we are hosting, and seeing that I work in one of the busiest tourist districts, I see a lot of foreigners. I think I am hospitable. Until you touch or kiss me... Then I want to be destructive. Foreigners are strange beings, thinking that we South Africans are going to bend over to their every need and do things the way its done in other countries. Wrong! If you travel, you go and see new places and experience new things. If you wanted things to be the same as what you're used to, stay at home!

Yes, South Africa is responsible for exploiting all of the foreigners that come here, but if you listen to me, I'll send you to the cheap, just-as-nice places surrounding the expensive places.

But I'm not worried about humans, humans can help themselves.

Dogs can't.

My sister picked up a dehydrated, starved, abandoned dog. A beautiful dog. A two-year-old female Basset Hound. We took her in until we can find her a stable home. The first time I saw her, she was too weak to stand on her own four paws. Her tail was constantly hiding between her legs. We gave her dog pellets, and water, and watched how she gobbled it up. Then came fish cakes and fish fingers. Yet, she didn't wag her tail. Then my cat came walking in, completely unaware of the three-times his size dog freelancing in the living room, and she licked him! LOL! If a cat had human facial expressions, looks would kill! The doggy finally wagged her tail, but my cat ignored me for 2 days, wanting nothing to do with me.


So, after three days she looks a lot better. I took her to the doggy parlor, and now her skin is extremely smooth, her ears are still chipped and swollen, and I have no idea what happened to her. My sister took the doggy to the veterinarian, and they couldn't find a chip to locate the owners, but its their loss. They don't know what a great dog they lost. She is joyful, loving, and as calm as a dope smoker. I named her Lucy today. I was listening to the Beatles when I wanted to name her - Lucy and the sky of diamonds. Unfortunately she can't stay, we already have four dogs, and none of them like her, but at least Lucy keeps big Bruno in his place. And another reason we can't keep her would be: if my parents come back from Australia and there's another dog here, my daddy is going to flip!

That was all the good news I have. Now for the bad news.

Well, on Monday night, actually Tuesday morning, after work I stopped at our Community Policing Offices. As I was talking to the Control Room lady, a call came through that shots were fired, not far away and that there was a break-in at a hardware store. I went there to see what happened, as always, I can't help myself. So, two black men, in their late twenties broke into the hardware store, they broke through the roof. A silent alarm went off and awoke the owner. The owner and his son went into their hardware store and heard the suspects on the roof. The owner told his son to go around the building with his shotgun and make sure that they don't get away. The son saw where the suspects climbed onto the roof, and he climbed up, and then he fired two shots in the dark.

Our response vehicle was on the scene first. Then the ambulance and the police showed up at the same time. They were there for a few minutes before I showed up. The paramedics, police officers, and one of our community policing members went onto the roof. They found the two suspects on the roof with bullet wounds through their legs. The one suspect (X) tried to run away, but he wasn't looking where he was running. The roof has two platforms. Between the two of them there is about a 1.5 meter drop. X ran and fell off, he fell hard, we suspected that he broke his pelvis. The other one (Y) was just sitting on the top platform waiting to be arrested.

Y was taken down first. He was arrested and his hands got tied up with cable ties. He was wearing a black and blue bikers jacket and BMW shoes worth R3 000. We were all cracking jokes about his clothes and how much it cost. It was all fun and games up until a point. The point comes a bit later.

X fell so hard, he couldn't walk. The paramedics said he looked a bit broken when they got there, in the position as shown here. They had to get the paramedic and the suspect down with the help of the fire department, because they were stuck.

Anyway, all the men were extremely arrogant towards the two suspects, and then one of them started touching them. First a pat on the shoulder, then a tap on the leg. Y went into the ambulance were an unskilled police officer tried to put a drip into his arm. I was unaware of this until the ambulance door opened. It was horrific, it looked like he skinned a piece of his arm off.

X had it worse. This man that started touching the suspects told the police officers to look away, and away they went... X was tied up, scared to death, and he was shaking. He was shaking, either of the pain, or the cold. This man... Kicked him... About 6 times, I didn't count. He kicked him until I said stop. I... Me...

Not the police officers... Me!

I dreamt that night that I gave that man a butterfly kick to his head and he fell face first to the floor. It would have been nice if I could do it and did do it.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I hate criminals. The idea is to arrest a perpetrator. Not kill him. If these to suspects were armed and dangerous and fired shots at us or endangered our lives in any way, by all means, beat the crap out of them.

But these two... They could have been trying to manipulate us by acting sympathetic, but they were already arrested. They were cold. They were in pain. Why the hell torture them then? This isn't Zimbabwe.

I don't know what happened to them afterwards. When X got loaded into the ambulance with Y, I left.

Next time, I promise, I WILL MAKE A CITIZEN'S ARREST. I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO SO, AND I WILL USE MY RIGHTS.

I said previously that humans can help themselves... Humans are the only animals which are known to kill for fun. So, maybe I'm wrong. I think 70% of all humans are useless, because they steal, they corrupt, they abuse, they kill, and they don't live life to the fullest.

Yes, I'm not making the most of my life either, but at least my grey matter works better than idiots who kick people while their down.