Got my first paycheck! The two weeks holiday was probably the longest I had gone without a paycheck in the last six years. While that's keeping me a little warm and happy at night, I have a funny story to share.
My next-door colleague is a very opinionated White South African. He is pragmatic and a realist - like me but also a tad bit pessimist unlike me, which is why we've found a great rhythm. "Stick to the immigrants," is what he jokes with me because the Americans are slightly unused to his brisk style of working. Now that I've established his background, let me move on with a little nugget of story I just learned. I'm still laughing as I type this so forgive the hiccups.
Let's call my South African colleague A. Last week he lost some close family members in an air-crash and he shared with us that the authorities are just beginning to find the bodies. I gave him a sympathetic smile and C, my other colleague chimed in, "but it's nothing like your Christmas story."
Intrigued, I pestered A to share with me his Christmas story. C offered to do it for him - apparently he had told the story so many times that it exhausted him now. So here goes.
Over Christmas break, his cousins in South Africa decided to have a family vacation and celebrate Christmas with their (not A's) grandmother. So they packed everyone up in a trailer, attached it to their car and drove from South Africa to Mozambique for the much-awaited Christmas vacation. Happily settled in, the family retires for the night. But when they wake up on Christmas Day - poof, Granny's dead. Sad news. Vacation killed (no pun intended) but a bigger tension envelopes the family - how the fuck are they going to get dead Granny from Mozambique to South Africa? A little background here - Mozambique, as beautiful as it is, is also a highly corrupt country. Taking a dead body through customs out would cost them a bomb, and not to mention the delay. Time was also of essence here. So the family wraps up the body, puts in the trailer and decides to risk smuggling it out. They set out in the sweltering African heat with a dead body (and its stench, slowly filling the muggy Trailer air). Their hearts were in their mouths as they crossed past border and immigration - but thankfully, no one stopped them. (and no one questioned the stench)
Finally on the outskirts of South Africa, the family breathed a sigh of relief. They parked the car at a gas-station and walked inside to have some coffee, clam their nerves. (and let's face it - high five each other on the successful smuggle job) Now, they could mourn in piece, they thought. Some time later, they emerged out of the cafe and walked towards the car. Only - there was no car!! Or trailer!! Turns out, while they were having coffee, someone sauntered past and stole the car!!!
Cue - laughter!
The Granny hasn't been found yet and man, what a surprise to those that stole the car. I can imagine them thumping their backs in congratulatory voices, only to discover a morbid decaying dead body in the trailer!
The story doesn't end here -- turns out, the Granny is worth quite a lot. And the family is in a limbo now because to access any of the funds and wealth, they need a dead fucking body to prove that she is gone. And there is no dead body.
I swear, this is the kind of stuff that only happens in movies. or Weeds. Not in lives of people you know! This story, sort of made my day.
