Half price shopping

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or possibly you’re living in a different province or country, you might not know it’s been raining in Jo’burg. I love the rain. But it causes something I loathe – traffic. So, on the way home this evening, I took a detour when I noticed kilometres of cars lining up Witkoppen to cross over Beyers. I zipped into Northgate and did a little shopping. And this is what I discovered.

At the end of the day, probably an hour before closing Pick ‘n Pay marks down a whole bunch perishable goods that have reached their sell-by dates. Score! Or so I thought when I was picking out my dinner and, because everything was half price, lunch for tomorrow. Figuring I was looking at a good half hour drive home I thought some finger food would be a good idea and I could eat in the car. So I chose the mini chicken burgers for R14. And all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t pay full price. I can’t imagine they tasted any better at 09h00 this morning, or even yesterday. The onion bhajai (sp) I warmed up in the oven were no better. My hopes for the butter chicken I planned for lunch tomorrow aren’t particularly high. But I’ve often consumed the strawberry jelly (jelly only comes in one legitimate flavour in my house) and custard so I know that was three bucks well spent.

Checkers also does an end of day price cut. I was there last week and was pleasantly surprized at the quality of their produce. Their prices aren’t always as much as half price, but they’re low enough to have me planning three veg for dinner.

The only question that remains unanswered is this: will this newly discovered shopping technique save me money or will groceries end up costing me more? I suspect the latter – I have an annoying tendency buy more things than I planned or need when faced with a shop full of things for sale.

Quick update: the Butter Chicken wasn't nearly as good as Woolies, but it was ediable. And worth R14, but I don't think I would part with R30 for it. The jelly and custard was worth every cent, though.

Spider hotel

Where the hell did all the spiders come from? Is there a tiny insect newspaper with a tiny insect classified section advertising property to rent and holiday spots? If there is, I reckon my place is top of the list. Nice, one bedroom ground floor unit; large garden with delectable eating spots; no cleaning in the corners or bath. Make an offer.
There’s been a steady stream of these (excuse the terrible pics – cell phone camera isn’t the best, but it’s all I’ve got):

They’ve been making webs in all sorts of places, including the bath. They seem to think it’s ideal; I don’t use the bath, so I don’t feel the need to clean it too often – especially when its inhabited by creepy crawlies.

Yesterday morning I woke up to find this rather menacing arachnid chilling in the corner of my bedroom:

I thought it was just a rain spider, but on closer inspection, I changed my mind. I did a bit of googling, but couldn’t find the identification. He was still there when I got home, but I opened the window and once the sun set, he scurried out into the great wide open. At least I hope that’s where he went. I dud a cursory check and didn’t find him lurking in any other corner or dark spaces.

And then, while taking a shower I noticed this idiot:

He decided that a good place to set up shop would be in the rubber seal of the shower door. Yeah, I know – go figure.

I’m seriously considering complete fumigation – these house guests are driving me nuts, and creeping me out just a little.

I-Pledge

The life of a journo involves attending many functions, where companies try to impress members of the media into giving their product/service/establishment/initiative a little bit of ‘free’ exposure in their respective publications. I say ‘free’ because they do pay for it, in a roundabout fashion – hiring venues and caterers, and occasionally lavishing guests with gifts all cost money.

And this time of year, the invitations come in thick and fast. This week alone, I have three invites. Next week, another two. And in-between, a trip to the KZN Midlands.

My first function this week took place in Sandton (evil) at 9am (doubly evil). It took two hours of rush hour traffic through Randburg and Sandton to reach my destination. But that’s a story for another post.

Imperial (the car people) launched its I-Pledge initiative to the public, after successfully developing it in-house with its employees. Basically, Imperial wants to make South Africa’s roads safer, starting with individual drivers. You take a pledge to give up one (or many) bad driving habits, like talking on your cell phone, SMSing, tail gating and road rage. It maintains that if everyone was a little more courteous to drivers and pedestrians (and I assume cyclists, although they weren’t specifically mentioned) we could reduce the number of deaths caused by traffic accidents. I happen to think it’s a wonderful idea and can make a real difference, if people buy into the concept.

I started thinking about what I could change to qualify to take the pledge. My driving habits include:

·         Occasionally driving over the speed limit. I don’t have spare cash lying around to line the pockets of some traffic official, and I usually leave enough time to travel to my destination, so there’s not really any need to speed.

·         Occasionally driving through an orange robot. Because I drive at the speed limit, I am usually able to brake at an orange robot without causing a pile up or burning rubber off my tires. Also, I stop at orange robots because the cars behind tend to shoot through red robots if no one stops in front of them – and the irritates the bananas out of me.

·         Swearing at other drivers, pedestrians and cyclists for doing stupid things and/or getting in my way. I pay my taxes and have as much right to use the roads as they do. This is my Road Rage coping mechanism. It's not hurting anyone and I'm not going to stop.

·         Occasionally talking/SMSing on my phone. Honestly though, I don’t do this often. But I suppose I could try harder to cut this out.

·         Never weaving in and out of lanes – this is one of the behaviours that induce swearing and the occasional zap sign from me. I plan my journey and pick my lane according to the direction in which I need to turn. I don’t decide on a whim to change lanes because the other one is moving faster at the moment. And then push my way back into the previous lane, one car ahead of where I was.

·         Making an effort to travel outside of rush hour so that I don’t get a chance to morph in to Road Rage Jane too often.

So, here’s my pledge:

I-Pledge to continue driving like a responsible person.

If you'd like to take the pledge, visit http://www.ipledge.co.za/