Hay? They’ve Been Robbed!

An email received from a subscriber in our Reikorangi Google Group over the weekend reads: “…Could you please send this around Reikorangi group,late yesterday a green or blue small SUV (like a Rav) was seen going into the shed on the corner Mangaone South Rd and Ngatiawa Rd.The guy was in his 30 to 45yrs with short dark hair,2 horse blankets and 6-7 bales of hay have gone missing If any one knows of this car please ring John or Mary Smith Ph ‘04555 7777’…”

To the day, a period of eight months has elapsed since Christmas Day 2013 when our flight arrived in Wellington from Johannesburg. A lifetime of eight months during which I have effectively “unlearned” that nasty South African habit of suspecting that someone will pinch an unguarded item, rob you if you do not lock something, will have an evil intent, simply because there is no-one else around. Whilst I cannot confirm that I have never had a single thought of uneasiness at all, it is fair to say that I am practically in that idyllic state of ease – something which should occur naturally, anywhere in the world… excluding being confronted by a hungry wild carnivore who may have developed a taste for human flesh…

Having had my car stolen in 2008 in Milnerton, I was always irrationally uneasy when having to park my car in any public space after that robbery. Once bitten…?  Yeah, I guess. Now, in Reikorangi, I have parked my car out in the roadside for many days and nights, especially while the builders have been busy. Once or twice I have even forgotten to lock the car: I generally lock while in a public place, just in case something happens, I suspect that the insurance company may have some excuse…

Back to the email: I have nom de plumed the characters and the telephone number. I suppose, for our more learned readers, that I have nombre de plumed the phone number.  Whilst many readers in other countries may scoff and query why it was so remarkable that someone had entered an unlocked property and then had proceeded to lift some unguarded items from that private property, the rest of us find it difficult to get our heads around the character of such a person. The irony of the situation is that if a particular horse owner were to be desperate to acquire some hay and protection for his horses and did not have the money or means to buy some, I am positive that any number of folk would have offered to assist him – all too frequently, it is simply a case of “ask and you shall be given”, a natural state of mind that comes with the turf when a fair proportion of people shrug off the coil of chasing after the acquisition of wealth simply for the sake of wealth itself. 

Previously, I would never have imagined that the victim could be so upset, not the fact that a loss had occurred, but the irreconcilable fact that someone had the insolence and shamelessness to take items without asking permission. Now in 2014 I can.