Like many other South Africans, Mr. T has gone beyond the grace period, afforded due to COVID-19 shutdown last year, to renew his driver’s licence. There’s a backlog creating a scramble at licencing centres, as expected.

 

The notice on the website states that booking slots will be opened twice a day at specific times. In his crazy, busy workday, he’s managed to squeeze in time to be on the site when the slots are released.

 

He sometimes gets in, only to be disappointed to see that the slots at centres near us have disappeared already. Other times, he can see the number of slots available, is able to fill in his details, but then the system freezes. Very frustrating.  

 

The slots apparently get swooped up by unscrupulous thieves to be sold to others.

 

Once again, there are allegations of corruption around this. The slots apparently get swooped up by unscrupulous thieves to be sold to others.  

 

He’s also extremely diligent and persistent. So, after a few days of trying to book, he realised that the system was not working and decided to drive through to one of the licencing centres to see if he could apply in-person.

 

He was up uncharacteristically early on Saturday, left before the kids were up, before 09:00. Don’t judge, we sleep in, especially over the weekends. When he arrived, he was given a form to complete but was stopped when it became evident that he did not have whatever proof of registration is required.

 

Honestly, I would not have driven through knowing that I had not registered. But he is persistence personified. He was just doing whatever he needed to do to get things done. He was asked to ‘wait on the side’ and was then approached by three men who offered to ‘help him’ get in aka a bribe – proof of alleged corruption at play, by the way. Unsurprisingly, he turned it down.

 

The other recent instance was where someone was trying to ‘sweet talk’ us into doing something for the ‘good of someone else’. I was taken by this and was happy to oblige. Not Mr T.

 

He generally had a bad feeling about it overall and was not going to do it “on principle”.

 

He was not “brought into this from the start” when there had been ample time (months, actually), he was not given all the facts, and believes that the players were economical with the truth. He generally had a bad feeling about it overall and was not going to do it “on principle”.

 

He quickly made me realise that this was true, that even though ‘doing good’ was the potential outcome, the road to that was manipulative. Something that both of us don’t take lightly.

 

If principle – not principal – was a person, I am married to him. It can be frustrating at times as the virtuous aren’t usually swayed by emotion. They deal with facts. Try arguing with that. You have to be on your A-game; no collapsing into tears or rants to get your point across. Doesn’t work.

 

But on the other hand, he makes me extremely proud. He holds up the mirror for me to be a better version of myself. And it’s definitely one that I want our sons to emulate.

 

If just half of our public service contingent were principled – a low bar, I know – our country would be able to move forward to begin the healing process, to right the wrongs of the past, once and for all.

 

Photo credit: Mr T. The mating macaws – taken on a recent trip to the Montecasino birdpark.