Publications
Partners
There's an old adage that goes along the lines of "that which is crooked cannot be made straight." I've therefore resigned myself to being a crook. The crook that hasn't yet been caught.
Whenever I'm in the supermarket, guess who the security guards will follow from aisle to aisle? None other than yours truly.
I think it’s a case of Murphy's Law working on me, or is it against me, where if something is going to happen, the victim is likely to be someone like me.
Then Cape Town's very swish shopping mall (Century City) announces that they will be having random checks on patrons to see if they are carrying weapons as the centre has been having a spate of armed robberies that they want to curb.
Guess who's going to be searched? It is yours truly out of the hundreds of people milling around.
What do kleptomaniacs look like? They look like me. And armed robbers too.
I've tried dressing either up or down in the hope I look less conspicuous but it hasn't helped.
Where possible I carry a small handbag rather than a large holdall so that it doesn't look like I'm about to stuff micro waves and kettles into my large contraption of a bag.
That's why I empathised with a Chinese woman who was recently detained at Cape Town International Airport for over 30 days. That could have been me, I said, because I have "the face" for that kind of thing.
On that fateful day when she was detained, the Chinese lady was with her husband who was let through by immigration authorities.
Wasn't that strange as one assumes the couple had prepared their documents together. Surely there would hardly have been a difference between what the two presented to officials for entry.
According to what we've read in newspapers, the Chinese saga was nothing more than a case of her being profiled or singled out as suspicious.
Maybe she fidgeted unnecessarily in the queue. I wonder if it was her make up. She was, after all, lovely to look at. Thankfully she didn't have dreadlocks because that's what most trouble makers have isn't it?
Dreadlocks? That's why profiling can be so farfetched. It is pretty much a subjective thing which everyone does. I once witnessed a woman shoplifting – she had big buttocks and wore leggings. Since then I've become suspicious of women fitting that description.
Radio host Udo Carelse, during a recent idle moment as he gazed down at passersby from his Sandton offices, noted that most women seemed to be wearing leggings. "Six out of 10 women" was his estimation.
Based on my warped interpretation of what constitutes a thief, which would label most women as crooks which is far from the truth.
I've heard of people being arrested by police for being "a source of danger to others" as they are merrily walking down a street.
Since I haven't been arrested yet I'm more concerned about some waiters we have in our midst and how they estimate or assess some of us.
I've treated white friends for coffee. The waiter inevitably gives the invoice to my guest. What has the waiter deduced about me? Does it mean those with "the face" can't pay? Go figure.
