A few years back I lived in an apartment block on the beach with the fastest telkom adsl available at the time.  The apartment offered everything I always imagined I will have one day.  From a breathtaking penthouse style balcony with sweeping seaviews to a rimflow pool complete with a ‘Victoria Falls’ waterfall feature flowing mountains of crisp clear water onto a ‘cocktail step’ occupied by only my closest friends and family.  I was living the dream.  There was however one major flaw with this dream, and that was the quality of internet access to the apartment.

For some aberrant reason the boys in blue (Telkom) failed to understand that our copper cabling was delivered by Jan van Riebeeck on his maiden voyage to South Africa.  One day we would be blessed by speeds so fast Google would beg us to host their datacentre.  The next day, My gran would complain her knitting forum wouldn’t load properly it was so slow.  Countless calls to Telkom’s competent call centre (lol) would leave me with a dagger in the hand ready for revenge.

Added to this frustration we had a neighbour from hell whom always chose to complain about my cars indicator light being to bright at 18:00 on a Sunday when she was trying to watch 50/50;  or the kettle was boiling to loudly during her weeknight meeting with 7de Laan.  This lady was so annoying she made the Telkom call centre look like The Ritz Hotel’s Platinum Loyalty Clubs concierge service.  I remember once she called in an ‘expert’ to examine the daffodils I planted in my garden in case they carried an incurable disease that might affect her dog Minky.  If only she was the dog, and the daffodils did carry such a disease….

However, there was one thing this fair lady did not know, she had an unsecured, flawless, wireless internet connection.  She, secretly, became my saving grace on many occasions.  Until one day, she announced she was moving.  Friends, it broke my heart.  I knew, my dream of living by the sea has officially come crashing down on me.  Without my neighbour from hell, I would  be stuck with internet from hell.  Even with her abrasive attitude, and continues pestering, she was my witch on a golden broomstick.

Needless to say, I moved on and so did she.  We never saw each other again, which is great for my temper.  However, up until this day I believe that without her stupidity, I would never have been able to cancell my DSTV in favour of the Big Bang Theory in HD.