SAA Stole Someone’s Luggage, Someone Alleges

South Africans hate injustice in all its forms. And they love calling attention to this hatred in small, creative ways. It’s folk infotainment.

There was the gentleman who rigged up his Land Rover with huge signs denigrating Land Rovers, for instance, and who then parked his vehicle outside Land Rover shows. There’s the fellow who founded Hellkom, a site dedicated to trashing Telkom, our friendly telecommunications monopoly.

And then there’s this spry motorist, spotted yesterday in the Cape Town city center, who bought large, colorful lettering – normally best used, one would think, to call attention to a sale on toys – and stuck it to the back of his Mercedes, obstructing his rear view and brightly advertising to the person idling behind him that SAA stole his luggage.

Whether SAA actually stole his luggage is a question that will probably never be answered with 100% certainty. (SAA has certainly never stolen Your Correspondent’s luggage, though it has had ample opportunity; and, meanwhile, the US government has broken into my suitcases twice.) It can be stated with greater confidence, however, that the signage has prevented a calamitous loss of sanity in our Mercedes-driving friend, whose deep-seated grievance might otherwise have poisoned his mind. For this we should all be grateful: one less potential road-rager on our streets!