METAL DETECTORS

 With reference to my last post, a friend just asked me about metal detectors. I said he'd find the answer here.

Let me tell you a story about metal detectors.

There was a time when the Deeds Office in Cape Town got it into their heads that they needed metal detectors at the entrance. God knows why. I can think of several officials who might have been hated by conveyancers so much that it might have crossed the minds of those conveyancers, from time to time, to assassinate them - but conveyancers are generally meek and mild little portly, balding, middle-aged men in grey suits amongst whom thoughts of violence might have been a titillating fantasy, never to be seriously considered under any circumstances at all. At all, I'm telling you!

But as we know from centuries of observation, any system, or any machinery, anywhere in the world, is only as good as its operators. The Human Factor. And these metal detectors were operated by first-class, Nobel-Prize-winning, Grade A morons. Of both genders. And they spent more time chatting than actually LOOKING AT WHAT THEY WERE DOING. And planning the strike for their next pay rise, no doubt.

Those were days when I wore an ankle holster with a stainless steel 5-shot .38 Special (known in Gangster-Land as a "Saturday Night Special") as a matter of routine and I was not about to surrender that thing to anyone for any reason at all, ever. You want it, come and get it, and the best of luck to you!

So I watched these guys for a while, pretending that I'm waiting for someone, and then I says to myself, says I:

Those idiots let you walk through the metal detector, and then sign in, (wrong way around but let's press on); if it buzzes, they run the wand over you (they don't pat you down - too much work) but they only run the wand under your armpits, down your waist and lightly between your legs. They never get to your ankles. Just what I suspected.

So I thought, here we go.

Through the metal gate.

Buzz!

The genius tells me to stop, and does his wand thing.

Nada, of course.

"Go again" says he, looking puzzled.

Buzz!

Rinse and repeat.

Confer with colleagues.

Now they're all watching.

"Again!" Says Professor Poepkowitz.

Buzz!

Another conference.

They actually know me. I've gone through this door every weekday morning for the last thirty years. But rules, as they say, is rules...

Just give a man a little power, and stand back and watch what happens!

"Come on, guys, I've got work to do in there. Tick tock."

They look at each other in dismay.

"Go through!" Says the Head Honcho.

I could have done some damage that day.

But, you know, I'm a grey balding portly little man with the small dreams of a scorpion, so I didn't...

HARRY FRIEDLAND

MARIMBA