Sometimes, even in the most serious situations, you manage to find humour. This is exactly what happened last week. But I have to give you bit of background.
Journalist Adéle Bloem recently wrote an article about a resident who severely neglected and abused her animals. The Roodepoort/ Krugersdorp SPCA was forced to confiscate a dog that was tied up with another dog to a tree. The chain was wound around the tree so tightly that the animals were forced to live in their own faeces. The confiscated dog also had an embedded collar.
To cut a very long story short, the owner of the animals arrived at my office, determined to vindicate herself about this gruesome act.
After listening to her story, I contacted the manager of the SPCA, Mandy Cattanach, to verify a few facts. When I put the phone down, the owner started making racist comments. I think it was because she was backed into a corner. I told her that I would not tolerate racist comments and asked her to leave my office. When she refused, I called another journalist, Riaan van Zyl, to call security. (I’ve always wanted to do that, it looks so powerful in the movies).
Riaan jumped up, frantically looked around as if to find the answers in the air and rushed off to find our distribution manager, Phillip Opperman, who doubles as security when needed. I watched Riaan, struggling to contain my laughter because the matter really was serious.
Next thing, Phillip walked into my office with his game face on, looking very fierce, and asked what the problem was. I explained the situation very briefly and in a very stern voice, he asked the person to leave.
Phillip is a kind, courteous and respected man, and I really wasn’t expecting the voice that I heard, so much so that I almost got a fright and wanted to also jump up and leave, until I realised, “Hey, wait a minute, this is my office”.
In the meantime, we were celebrating a birthday outside and as the woman left, with the underlying threat of “You will hear from my lawyer”, she had to walk past a newsroom full of people eating cake (they didn’t have popcorn to watch the movie playing out). Of course the story spread like wildfire and despite the seriousness of the situation, it was very funny.
However, I take animal abuse very seriously. If you can’t look after your animals, don’t get them, otherwise you will have the SPCA and us breathing down your neck. I also will not tolerate any racist remarks.
Until next week, take care of one another.
