just for the fun of it....these were written many years ago and are true....if you feel like a chuckle at my expense read on...
Getting out of a fine....
I have a slight problem with authority. Well, no maybe that’s a bit harsh on myself, but in truth I like teasing the police, or government officials or some one in a position of assumed power over me. It’s a game. Occasionally I lose and that costs me money, but I come away with a laugh of note, often, so I thought I would write a few down. Its these little adventures, or stories in my life that I can look back on with a chuckle and smile while the **** comes down around me, so to speak!
Most people know I am a beekeeper. In South Africa its was passed as law that we have to carry proof of a drivers license to be displayed on request by any police offices or traffic warden if so asked. Fine in principle but have the authorities not learn that things like the “dom pas” of the apartheid era just caused them endless hassles? So I have a drivers license, well by that I mean I have officially passed the tests but the actual card seems to go missing rather regularly with me. Not on purpose but I don’t often have one on me. For example I had my wallet stolen in January 2006, in it was my drivers license. Its now October 2006 and I still haven’t complied with regulation, preferring to talk my way out the fine that stand in 5 hour long ques!
About 8 years ago as a young beekeeper I had gone to harvest honey from my hives. Once harvested there are always some bees left in the suppers (that’s what we beekeepers call the honey boxes where the bees store honey…get with the speak people!) but as they have had their home ripped open, smoked to near suffocation and then thrown into a constant earth quake type situation in the back of a car they are rather demoralized and wont sting. So I was happily driving along in my closed high canopy bee vehicle when I was stopped by a delightful cop. No drivers license, I tried the tack that it was Sunday, my farm is just down the road etc, but nothing going, he started writing the fine for R400. I still had my overalls and gum boots on and he walked around to the back of the car to get the license plate number. So I jumped out to follow him, thinking I would find another way to get out this fine. I started taking my overalls off, cooling off a bit while he was writing the ticket and then opened the back doors to the honey…. and a cloud of bees. Out they came, as they always do, flying from dark to light to try get back to the hive and I started doing a jig. Slapping my neck, face, back of the legs pretending to get stung. Man did that officer run, bolted up the hill away from my car screaming at me to leave and take my bees with you. I closed the doors, walked around to the cab, not one sting and a huge grin at saving myself R400 fine!
NOT getting out of a fine....
Then there was another one. Funnily also on a Sunday morning around 9 but this time I was in my little polo hatch back. On the Saturday evening I did a swarm removal from the roof of a house, caught the bees and put the hive into the back of the car, closed them up and drove home. In the morning I checked them and they were calm and quiet, again disheartened at the chain of events from the night before and just looking to start life again in a new hive. I phoned a friend and was organizing to go for Sunday morning pancakes and coffee at Broadachers Nursery. I carried on talking on the phone as I turned onto William Nicol Dr, a traffic officer spotted me talking on the phone while driving, no way of escaping and he pulled me over. But it was Sunday. The sun was up, I was in a good mood and started negotiating my way out of this. Things like, “well officer I have just started a new romance with a stunning lady, and its is the first time she has invited me to her place, for coffee! Come on you know what its like when a lingerie model invites you to her place, you jump for the car and drive. I left in a hurry, Sir, and I didn’t get directions so she was giving me directions. I am truly sorry officer, but what is a young man to do…..etc”
By this stage I had a huge round black face leaning into my window, his elbows on the window sill and I was doing well. No pen to paper yet. So he asks me what I do for a living. “Well, Sir, ( being polite is always a good tack, just do NOT be insincere, that’s death to your cause) I specialized in helping rural populations making a sustainable living from beekeeping at grass roots level” The more politically correct speak and catch phrases you can put into a sentence the better!
He was looking impressed, 20 minutes of hard long negotiations and I heard the magic words “that’s fine, enjoy your date!” And then it happened! One bee, as in a singular slightly confused female detached herself from the hive in the back of the car and flew as straight as an arrow and drilled him on the forehead. I watched her land, the front legs grip a purchase, the abdomen curl round and I just knew the millisecond the pain would hit! I watched it mm from my face as he still leaned on my window sill, blocking almost all the light. To the officers credit he didn’t flinch. The bee pumped her venom in, slow and deliberately as he started writing. Line after line with his nasty black pen which cost me R500. I laugh so much thinking back and seeing it all in slow motion again. The story about a new date was all bullshit unfortunately, but one I might use in future if the need arises!
