I’m finally at home (7 hours earlier than expected), and have some free time, so I think it’s time for the second installment of “The chronicles of the weird things that have been happening to me” (although a shorter, sexier title is definitely needed).
A couple of weeks ago, I was at Wits after a morning of research lectures, and on my way to my car, I ran into my friend Chris, who had about 2 hours to kill until his SRC meeting. Since I hadn’t seen Chris in a month or so, we decided to go for coffee and catch up on each others’ lives. We went to the West Campus “Village” (affectionately known as the Willage), ordered our drinks and sat down to chat. We were there for over an hour and were debating whether we should leave so that Chris would be early for his meeting when a middle-aged Indian gentleman walked over to our table and asked if he could speak to us for a minute. Somewhat surprised, we agreed and prepared to be asked if we would like to join some or other volunteer program or if we had found God/Jesus/Xenu. Unfortunately, this never happened, as he asked instead if we thought that he was entitled to defend himself against his ex-wife’s new husband’s slander. Chris and I were somewhat taken aback, both as to what our responses should be and why we were being asked this question in the first place. The man seemed to have decided that Chris and I were ideally suited to give him advice though, having confirmed that I was studying psychology and that Chris was studying law, despite the fact that we were complete strangers (and somewhat unknowledgeable about divorces and the ensuing legalities of such things). For the next 10 minutes or so, talking at a mile a minute, he asked us our opinions on a number of issues pertaining to his divorce, mostly involving our evaluation of him and his situation. I felt a little overwhelmed at this point, and decided to remain in neutral counseling mode, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him, just in case he decided to take my somewhat unqualified word as gospel. Then, I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere, and switched to logotherapy mode, hoping to explain that he could only take responsibility for his attitude towards the divorce and his ex-wife, and that what she did was her choice. I didn’t get very far though, as he suddenly asked for my opinion of his psychologist, whose clothing item of choice were mini-skirts and who “deliberately” dressed suggestively when he came for his appointment, taking advantage of his position. I then launched into an explanation of the ethics code for health professionals and suggested that perhaps he should find a new psychologist if he found sessions with his current one uncomfortable and inappropriate. It was at this point that Chris and I chose to leave though, since Chris had his meeting to get to, and wasn’t prepared to leave me alone with our new friend. Having made our exit, Chris and I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked away, hoping we hadn’t done too much damage, and considering whether we should open our own legal and psychological counseling centre! As random as the incident was though, I can’t help feeling a little sad for the guy, since he was so desperate for affirmation and advice that he was prepared to rest his self-esteem on the opinions of 2 strangers.
On to happier things though. My iBurst email address is currently changing, and so I decided that it would be prudent to open a Hotmail account so that I would at least receive any information from Wits. I went with the obvious candice.schneider@hotmail.com, on the basis that all the shorter addresses were already taken. Having signed into Hotmail the next day, I was somewhat surprised to see that I already had an email – odd, considering no one had my new address yet! I opened it and discovered the following message:
“Dear Mark and Candice,
I am unfortunately "attached" to my sofa with my gipsed foot, but I will continue to manage your file from a distance and Dorothée will be more onsite...
Tomorrow she will be at Ste foy at 10 am with the extermination company for the rats. I am concerned about this, especially regarding the madresses. They have been seriously damaged by the rats (dejections) and if it was my home I would burn them up and buy new madresses as rats can cause diseases.
I would like to know what you want to do with the damaged madresses. Should we just have them cleaned as well as possible, or should they be replaced? We can check with the insurer if there is a possibility to be compensated, but this is not sure...
Best regards,
Johanna”
The next day, I got this reply to the previous message (supposedly from “Mark”) :
“New ones except see if you can clean and save the big (mattresses?).How is your foot?”
A couple of weeks ago, I was at Wits after a morning of research lectures, and on my way to my car, I ran into my friend Chris, who had about 2 hours to kill until his SRC meeting. Since I hadn’t seen Chris in a month or so, we decided to go for coffee and catch up on each others’ lives. We went to the West Campus “Village” (affectionately known as the Willage), ordered our drinks and sat down to chat. We were there for over an hour and were debating whether we should leave so that Chris would be early for his meeting when a middle-aged Indian gentleman walked over to our table and asked if he could speak to us for a minute. Somewhat surprised, we agreed and prepared to be asked if we would like to join some or other volunteer program or if we had found God/Jesus/Xenu. Unfortunately, this never happened, as he asked instead if we thought that he was entitled to defend himself against his ex-wife’s new husband’s slander. Chris and I were somewhat taken aback, both as to what our responses should be and why we were being asked this question in the first place. The man seemed to have decided that Chris and I were ideally suited to give him advice though, having confirmed that I was studying psychology and that Chris was studying law, despite the fact that we were complete strangers (and somewhat unknowledgeable about divorces and the ensuing legalities of such things). For the next 10 minutes or so, talking at a mile a minute, he asked us our opinions on a number of issues pertaining to his divorce, mostly involving our evaluation of him and his situation. I felt a little overwhelmed at this point, and decided to remain in neutral counseling mode, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him, just in case he decided to take my somewhat unqualified word as gospel. Then, I realized that I wasn’t getting anywhere, and switched to logotherapy mode, hoping to explain that he could only take responsibility for his attitude towards the divorce and his ex-wife, and that what she did was her choice. I didn’t get very far though, as he suddenly asked for my opinion of his psychologist, whose clothing item of choice were mini-skirts and who “deliberately” dressed suggestively when he came for his appointment, taking advantage of his position. I then launched into an explanation of the ethics code for health professionals and suggested that perhaps he should find a new psychologist if he found sessions with his current one uncomfortable and inappropriate. It was at this point that Chris and I chose to leave though, since Chris had his meeting to get to, and wasn’t prepared to leave me alone with our new friend. Having made our exit, Chris and I breathed a sigh of relief as we walked away, hoping we hadn’t done too much damage, and considering whether we should open our own legal and psychological counseling centre! As random as the incident was though, I can’t help feeling a little sad for the guy, since he was so desperate for affirmation and advice that he was prepared to rest his self-esteem on the opinions of 2 strangers.
On to happier things though. My iBurst email address is currently changing, and so I decided that it would be prudent to open a Hotmail account so that I would at least receive any information from Wits. I went with the obvious candice.schneider@hotmail.com, on the basis that all the shorter addresses were already taken. Having signed into Hotmail the next day, I was somewhat surprised to see that I already had an email – odd, considering no one had my new address yet! I opened it and discovered the following message:
“Dear Mark and Candice,
I am unfortunately "attached" to my sofa with my gipsed foot, but I will continue to manage your file from a distance and Dorothée will be more onsite...
Tomorrow she will be at Ste foy at 10 am with the extermination company for the rats. I am concerned about this, especially regarding the madresses. They have been seriously damaged by the rats (dejections) and if it was my home I would burn them up and buy new madresses as rats can cause diseases.
I would like to know what you want to do with the damaged madresses. Should we just have them cleaned as well as possible, or should they be replaced? We can check with the insurer if there is a possibility to be compensated, but this is not sure...
Best regards,
Johanna”
The next day, I got this reply to the previous message (supposedly from “Mark”) :
“New ones except see if you can clean and save the big (mattresses?).How is your foot?”
And then later that day, the reply:
“Dear Mark,
My foot is not so good, I can't go and will not be able to drive for 1 month or so... I am lucky to work with Dorothée who is a very good assistant and also a great driver!
She will drive to Ste Foy tomorrow and make a clear inventory on what should be replaced in the chateau due to the rats. She will also get an idea of what there is to do for the extermination and how much it will cost.
We will let you know as soon as possible how we manage to get out of this rat file!
All my best, have a good trip home!
Johanna”
It turns out that the email is from Toulouse in France, and that my email address likely belonged to someone else (i.e. another Candice Schneider) before I got it! Either that or I have some mysterious connection to a French chateau (which would actually be really cool, aside from the rats!). Maybe my passoprt will come in useful sooner than I thought...
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