There is a saying that I first heard on 4th December 1987. I was in labour with Stacey and Mike was diligently by my side. Whiling away the time, he was reading a Reader’s Digest and at the bottom of one of the pages was this quote,
“Nothing is as easy at it looks and it always takes longer.”
With great amusement he chose to tell me this piece of wisdom at the very time I did not need to hear it.
When you are having a baby, getting him/her out is certainly not as easy as it looks and it always takes longer.
Over the years, the daily irritations of life have, rather cynically, made us repeat it. Quite often the hearer doesn’t want to know! But daily irritations are generally, just that. They last but a day or two and then life moves on. We had one of those yesterday and into today.
The electricity went out at my brother’s house and the prepaid unit was making a clicking sound. David (the official care-taker) called out an electrician who said it was the City’s job. I called the electricity department and shortly before 6pm, a contractor arrived. He called in the number of the electricity box and was promptly told that it had red flags come up against it for ‘fraudulent activity.’ Huh? I was outraged. There is hardly any activity on this electricity box. David just about lives with the hot water cylinder off and only buys electricity every few months. He’s a great saver of electricity and does the city proud….. Turns out it’s a bad thing to hardly use any electricity. It makes the City think you are getting it illegally.
Nothing we could say would prompt the contractor to budge on helping us. He gave us a name and number to call and said we must sort it out with the “Wynberg” tomorrow. With David having gone back to our house to do some essential computer work, Mike and I sadly emptied the fridge and made our way home.
This morning, Mike phoned the number and had a L-O-N-G conversation with a stubborn civil servant at the electricity department. “Sir, we can’t do anything about it today. I only have one inspector and so he will be there at 9-30am tomorrow morning. Sir, we have to have an inspector inspect the premises, because we suspect fraudulent activity. No one is using any electricity there and they must be getting it from somewhere!”
Mike tried desperately to explain that David was a student and saved money by keeping the hot water cylinder off and only really using the fridge, his computer and TV. The man eventually believed Mike but still insisted that no one could sort it out today.
Mike played his trump card.
“Thank you for all you have said, but one last thing – please can you tell me, is it a fire hazard?”
“No.”
“Are you very sure that the clicking won’t spark and burn the place down?”
“No, it won’t.”
“Are you very sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well I will have to trust you that it won’t cause a fire. What’s your name?”
They were there by 1pm!
Nothing is as easy as it looks and it always take longer.
Yip. But today they came when they may have come tomorrow!
Colossians 1:11
May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy…
We do need it!
Keep the smile going!
God bless you!
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂