A Will O' The Wisp

New good things about Maria:

Example 1: bribery tips

Maria: "Mr Anthony here is your new Police card."

Me: "What's it for?"

Maria: "You have to carry it with you."

Me: "Why?"

Maria: "In case Police stop you and ask for it."

Me: "Why would they do that?"

Maria: "Just put it in your wallet ok?"

Me: "There's no room in my wallet for another card. Also , I need this card for my residency so I don't want to lose it. Why would they stop me? Like ... when I am drink driving?"

Maria: "Yes. Maybe."

Me: "Then I can just bribe them when I'm drink driving? I don't need to carry this card. I'll just give them money?"

Maria: "No more than 100 thousand, ok?" [It's about $10]

Me: "No more than 100 thousand? For drink driving?"

Maria: "Drink driving or other things. 100 is enough. No more."

Me: "Thanks for the tip."

Maria: "Yep."

Then she turned on a dime and was gone.

Example 2: Dehors

Maria doesn't like being at her desk. This means she will happily do any errand to avoid it - pay bills, top-up my phone, buy stamps, pick up dry cleaning, get me something for lunch. I find this far more useful than booking meeting rooms and conference calls.

At 11:30am today she went for her usual 15 mins Friday prayer-followed-by-lunch. Maria's Friday lunch typically lasts between 2 hours and forever, depending on how many cigarettes she wants to cram into it. I try not to need her on Friday afternoons but at 1:45pm today I needed to call her back for an errand I didn't have time for.

I sent her straight back out to buy phone credit and she reacted as if I had asked her to take the rest of the afternoon off. Which I suppose I had.