the corner office

Just had a really freaky experience.

A feature on South African highways, (and I'm sure other countries have exactly the same things), are 'island' petrol station/convenience store/fast food joints. The only way to get to them is usually from the highway, or perhaps a slipway from an onramp, and they always only spill out onto your side of the dual carriageway again. Because they're so isolated, you usually have 'twins', one on each side of the highway.

I stopped in at the N1 South BP Express at the Beyers Naude offramp to grab a bite to eat on the way home. Needless to say, the MacD's was closed but the BP Express shop has a 'Wild Bean Cafe' / deli inside. The place itself was deserted. A few petrol attendants (yep, ZA doesn't do self-service petrol for some reason) huddled in a doorway, two blokes behind the Wild Bean counter, the cashier behind bullet-proof glass and one middle-aged lady parking off at one of the tables around the corner drinking coffee. I don't know what brings a middle-aged lady to be sitting on her own at a BP Express at 1h45 in the morning but some things are best left unasked, I think.

Anyway... you know these guys just want to be at home with their families, sleeping like the rest of the world, but they still make an effort to be friendly. They're good okes. I'm busy paying the cashier and making idle thanks/you're welcome mah-man chit-chat, when two cop cars come racing up and skid to a halt outside. By the way the doors were opening before the cars had even stopped, I kinda figured they weren't popping in for Wild Bean coffee. As one of them made for the door unholstering his gun, it became more clear that this definitely wasn't social. About a half-second later one of the petrol attendants shouted 'not here!'. The cops stopped, looked at each other, a bit of confused discussion with the petrol attendants, before one of them shouted 'wrong one' (less politely), with which they hopped back into their cars and raced off again.

Only as they were pulling away did it sink in. Desolate petrol station. Only person facing the dude with the cash is me. Reported armed robbery in progress at Beyers Naude BP Express, and the only dude who could possibly be the perp is me. Once that had sunk in and I'd realised that I came rather close to having 8 cops giving me the 'freeze motherf***er!' treatment, I was almost disappointed that it didn't happen. It's not every day you get to act all innocent and actually be innocent and get away to tell the story. I got over it really quickly though.

Of course, the real cock-up was that instead of the BP Express on the N1 South where I was, the robbery was probably on the other side of the dual carriageway at the N1 North BP Express. These poor coppers would have to race about 5 kms down the highway before they got to another offramp that allowed them to turn around and come back up. Actually, I don't give a shit where the real robbery was happening, I was just grateful it was somewhere else.

The cashier's only words were "there's lots of robberies happening to us", followed by "now I'm feeling scared, man".

No shit. I was feeling it too. Knowing there's krimnals in the vicinity and rather edgy cops and they're all armed to the teeth left me quietly kakking myself and just wanting to get the hell away from there. Which is more than the poor cashier can do. "This glass is bullet-proof, isn't it?", I ask, tapping on the glass and trying to sound reassuring. "Yes, but they come in with a petrol guy from outside", he says, pointing a mock pistol at his head. "What can I do? I have to open up."

Kinda puts things in perspective. I got to hop in my car and bugger off, kiss my girlfriend goodnight and chill out at home with my Prego roll and write up a blog entry. The cashier, the Wild Bean dudes and the petrol attendants have to stick around for another 5 hours before the rest of the world wakes up, wondering whether the next car that turns off the highway is going to be filled with AK-weilding thieves who'd just as soon shoot them as greet them.

Welcome to Africa.

With that, I'm off to bed. But as I said to the cashier as I left, I am thinking of them.