our side of the world is becoming less and less efficient, because we tolerate mediocrity. we accept the flaws in people, as we rightly should, but even lame excuses and feebly -covered laziness are part and parcel of the deal. it has grown to the point of being so in your face. yes, i am lazy, yes i am not willing to lift a single finger and get off my metaphorical big butt. soooo?

somewhere out there someone expects me to stay at home 24hours a day, and that person isn't even my hubs, until he sees fit to visit. he assumes, in that empty echoing brain of his, that i have nothing better to do than sit at home and lay my golden egg. without even asking what i do for a living, what type of lifestyle i live and what my schedules are like, he assumes that i will be at home, waiting, pining, anticipating his arrival.

gasp! who can be so righteous, so full of himself, you may like to know. a charity organisation, would you believe? i am trying to donate the sofa that we have grown to love and adore to someone else who may still be able to extract many more years of good use from it, seeing that it is still in very good condition. i vetted potential candidates as i didn't want it to be abused by those worms missing cardiac organs and conscience, who milks charitable intentions for their own personal profit. finding a respectable organisation, i emailed them to see if they can pick up the sofa. what is the condition of your sofa??? three question marks! she must be a very inquisitive person. i commiserate that many people genuinely mistake their organisation as dumping ground for whatever rubbish they have brewing at home, but that is another kind of worm which i do not want to go into. i send her photos of my sofa and she was apparently satisfied. can you please pick it up on 24th morning? ok, i will make the arrangement on 24th morning. please kindly read carefully. not 'i will arrange for the pick-up on 24th' but rather i will make the arrangement on that morning only. i know not how to answer to that. i emailed her again on 23rd morning; can you please ask them to come before 10.30am? she did not reply. apparently, charity is a very busy organisation.

i woke up bright and early today morning to give a last clean-up and a lingering look to the sofa. i have not heard from them since their last email agreeing to make arrangements. what arrangements exactly, i am apparently not authorised to know. it is top secret stuff, this sofa recycling business, lest people may come and kidnap the sofa.

i called her but no one answered. i tried again later. they will come before 12pm. can you let me know around what time? before 12pm. only now i understand that it takes rocket scientist discipline to come up with the scheduling of charitable pick-ups. i'm not asking for the timing right down to the seconds and milli-seconds. the approximate hour will do as i have to make a trip back home to be around for them to pick up. they will need detailed complicated calculations to come up with a decent answer, with theorems, algebraic equations and formulas. apparently, all people who will like to donate their stuffs to charity are people who have nothing better to do than shake legs at home.

so, i joined the group of well-meaning people out there and shook my legs until 11am, when i still haven't heard a peep from them. there goes my morning, but this is for a good cause, lady, so pipe down. by 11.20 i know they will not be turning up before 12, as the good lady says. i called again and asked for the lorry driver's contact. lorry drivers have a very esteemed position in the charitable organisation's framework, it would seem. as you have often heard, it's not what you know but whom you know. in this case, it is the lorry driver! so people out there, don't look down on the small people. *shaking index finger* so i called him. before 3pm, he says. why do i have the funny feeling i am being given the run around? sigh. before 3pm? yes, before 3pm.

so, now i have nothing to do but continue to shake legs until 3pm? at this rate, i will have very skinny and toned thighs. however, as i have grown rather attached to my elephant thighs, i threw in the towel. i actually went out and did some other productive stuffs. gasp! the nerve of me!! when they see fit to appear ala david copperfield style. i will then do my harry houdini too.

who knew charity can be so complicated?