Reading the Terms

Reading the T’s and C’s

During recent times with technology advancing to the extent where digital is everything, and getting anything from coffee to company mergers are but a click away, we seem to have forgotten the age of hard copies, fine print and T’s and C’s.
Yes, they still exist, but in the new and glamorous age of online marketing it seems to always be the last thing mentioned among st the millions of pretty offers being thrown at prospective clients.
The smallest link on the website and the last document to be sent. Not to mention the bigger the company the smaller the link.
Even with all the protection granted to consumers with the latest update of the consumer protection act, the responsibility still remains that of the client to actually read the terms and conditions.
I remember the good old days when before going into any kind of deal even if it was between friends, you always had to hear out the boring terms, “if I borrow you my car, you will blah blah blah, you will not blah blah blah, and you may still not, even if blah blah,…..”
The only thing in my mind at that stage is, “give the keys already. AARRGHH!!!!”
So yes, we all feel that way about reading T’s and C’s.
But when exactly did we stop caring about what it is we are getting ourselves into. When did we start believing what institutions tell us, without looking at the fine print?.
Trust, I hear you say……..
But they don’t trust us…….
They tell us we need a good credit record in order to incur larger debt.
They ask us to bring a three months bank statement, certified copy of id, and proof of residence and/or any other account, as well as a payslip from a job you have to be permanent with, for more than a year. And with the new FICA ACT information renewal needs to happen on an annual basis.
This is when you need something from them. Is that trusting?
So ask yourself why should you trust them with your money and hope that you get what they say they will give you, without any hidden costs or loop holes.
If you think about it, the time that it may have taken you to read the terms and conditions of the contract, is nothing compared to having to fork out extra time and money on the details you didn't see.
If you work in a service industry, you will know, that the clients who are most likely to end up complaining are the ones who never read T’s and C’s made available to them.
If you’re a client you should know, you’re actually making it hard for both parties when you don’t read the term.
E.g. something goes wrong you call customer service.
The 5mins your on hold, seems even longer because you’re angry that they never did what they said.
They tell you they can’t help you because that clause was in the terms.
You’re angry.
The poor agent on the other end is helpless, and frustrated.
You get more frustrated and rant.
Your start swearing cause now you want your money back.
The agent gets angry and swears at you.
The guy loses his job and his small salary that he used to feed his kids…..
And you still have to pay the extra costs.
In conclusion you/me the consumer, customer, client, whatever you want to call yourself, are still responsible for talking the time and making effort to read the term and conditions, because you can only benefit yourself from doing so.
http://cybersmartisp.wordpress.com/

*PS: No real people lost their jobs and no real clients have been sworn at during the writing of this article.
                                                                                                                   By Leonie Adonis 

Finding the pieces

The infamous “They” prescribe various methods of obtaining the one thing we all desire, “happiness”
You may have in your life found yourself in the position of the ‘advice giver’ on what will make the ‘recipient’ happy but as I always say everyone needs something to believe in.    

Some find it in the small things in life, some in morals and beliefs and some in living without morals and beliefs, others find it in structure and planning. And others still in material gain and wealth.
Many of us may have tried one or more of these methods of finding happiness, and many still trying.
A select few have found it and are living in Alaska ………

I believe that happiness is individual, not black and white but customized to our own special shades to create the kaleidoscope that make up our souls.

There is however the argument that because we all have the same basic needs: love, belonging, purpose, value and food. We are all to find them in the same places.
I think that we are individuals and even though we are made up of the same meat suit, contents differ, some more than others.
For example of my favorite needs that contribute a large percentage to my happiness is food.

 My friend and I have some time ago discovered Mac Donald’s Cup a Cake
I loved the caramel but she preferred the chocolate and though we both loved it we didn’t have each other’s. My best friend and I both like fish she prefers hers slightly more cooked with less salt, more vinegar and no skin at times.
The same applies to our other needs
We express ourselves differently.

We find belonging in different places and purpose in different ways.
For me, love is in the prickly feeling of his stubble under my finger tips that always makes me giggle no matter how sad I feel. And the snoring of my daughter at night when her dreams have carried her away.
I find purpose in cleaning after the family and then complaining about it loudly, and making coffee, for some explainable reason.

And belonging or Home, well I see glimpses of it sometimes, when they walk in front of me holding hands, or when she plants her 7 year old kiss firmly on his cheeks when she has to say goodbye, and the 5 year old, makes the inherited evil eye and goes right back to playing, or when she holds onto her sisters hand like they are headed in the some direction somehow.

 But that’s just me, at the end of it all. The colors that make up the pictures of our souls are all different and so are the brushes that they are panted with and canvases they are placed on.
No matter where or how or when you find your happiness when you do, it is nothing you can compare to that of another. Though you may share the same experience, you experience it differently.
So if you haven’t found yours yet and even those who have, don’t compare it to anyone else’s or tell someone else how they could possibly find theirs using your methods.
As I always say we all need something to believe in so always hold on to what it is you believe.
In this case I believe that only one person can live your happiness.

 Leonie A 02 Jul 13

In the Darkness

In the Darkness

Your hair smells of jasmine, and something else I can’t put my finger on and though I don’t know what it is, my senses can’t seem to get enough of it.

I take care that my fingers are warm when I touch you, after all I’d feel guilty if I woke you from your peace.

In the dark, my fingers start to trace the lines of your face every curve, every bend as you lay quietly in the bed next to me, your face towards mine.

I start at the top of your brow and slowly move down to the bridge of your nose, high but petite in relation to your face and the tiny eyes that move around under their lids.

I turn my hand on its back and I slide it down the side of your nose onto your pillow like cheeks .They feel like their covered in silk and though that description seems unreal it’s as accurate as I can think of.

You move.

You must have felt my hand because you’re smiling. I know because I can feel the deep hollowness of sunken flesh as a dimple forms just below your upper cheek as I glide my hand over it.

“O” God you’re beautiful when you smile.

My fingers now make their way down to your cupids bow lips small as most of your features and rosy as I feel the hot air that escapes your lungs as your breath. I let my hand rest on the corner of your mouth for a while that’s when you smile again and my heart jumps at the thought of waking you so I move my hand to your jaw line beautifully curved, arched perfectly from one side to the other.

“I love you” I whisper softly to you, knowing by your deep and heavy inhalations that your consciousness has been carried away by your dreams.

My hand moves down to your cute chin circling once and then moves on down to your neck, soft as your lips and warm as your breath. I reach your collarbone & I realize strangely for the first time that you’re of a relatively small  size.

I don’t much mind it’s just that I never noticed before or maybe it just feels that way in the dark. 
My hand is now on your chest feeling it's motion as it rises and falls to your slow sleepy breathing and the steady rhythm of your heart beat.

I pause once again wondering what you’re thinking, what your dreaming and that you’re the most beautiful creature ever created.

 I know this in my heart and in my head it’s OK, even though I am blind you will always be beautiful in the darkness.

                                                                                                By: Leonie Adonis 

The Daughters Story

The Daughters Story

His blond mushroom cut hair hangs into his eyes and he wipes it away with his small soft hands.

He kneels by the side of his bed in his blue and red Spider-man pj’s. In the dark bedroom, he crouches and searches for the candle he hid under it a few nights ago and lets out a faint smile when he feels it beneath his bony fingers. He slides it out from under the bed along with daddy’s lighter which he hopes daddy doesn’t notice is gone before it can be replaced. He lights the candle and puts it on the chest of drawers next to his bed. In its faint light the clock on the wall reads 23:40.

Mommy usually goes to sleep at 21:00, right after she tucks him into bed gently kissing and singing her baby boy to sleep. By now her dreams have swept her from this world over the rainbow and daddy, he went to sleep hours ago, drunk but asleep. With the distant sound of a cars alarm and dogs barking he continues, sliding a piece of paper from under the bed sheets in front  of him, he unfolds it cautiously as if touching the wings of a beautiful butterfly, trying hard not to break it or make a sound.

By the light of the candle his cold grey eyes move effortlessly over the words as if memorised and he returns the page to where it was found. A sudden creak in the floor boards cause him to freeze with fear. He looks handsome as the golden candle light glazes his cheeks and creates shadows of his small nose and the tiny upturned corners of his mouth and soft pink lips. His hair once again falls into his eyes but he doesn’t wipe it away, too afraid to move he waits, waits until his heartbeat steadies and breathing slows, until he’s completely convinced that there is no one outside the bedroom door. When he is, he lets out a soft breath of relief and continues. Placing his elbows on the bed in front of him he clasps his hands and starts to pray:

“Dear Lord I know that mommy prayed already tonight but I want to ask a special favor, I go to church every Sunday and really do listen to what the pastor is saying and I don’t fall asleep like the others only when I’m really tired form cleaning the garden that daddy never does, I’m saying this cause, well because, I know I shouldn’t ask anything I don’t deserve.”

He’s quiet for a long while, pulling his lips tightly together, frowning, as if the hardest part is now right in front of him. His deep tense frown relaxes and a single tear spills onto his cheek form the corner of his eye.

“Lord, Mommy is like an angel and she is very smart.”

 Pausing once more he reflects upon his next words.

“I don’t like it when daddy hits her, when he tells her his been with other woman and I hate it Lord when I have to see my mommy cry. So Lord give me the strength to do what I’m gonna and the courage to handle what happens after.”

He opens his grey eyes, now filled with tears, and slides his hand under the bed once more pulling out the missing kitchen knife.

He blows out the candle and hides it under the bed bare footed he walks to the door he opens it without a sound as if it was practiced over and over. He slips out not closing the door behind him and makes his way their room. A streak of light spills onto the bedroom floor, but mom and dad don’t wake.

That night I lay in our bedroom, paralyzed with fear, my pillow wet with salty tears.

I am only 3 years old and can do nothing to stop my 9 year old brother.

So I squeeze my eyes shut as he re enters the room with bloody hands and no knife

He kneels in front of the bed once more. With my eyes shut I listen carefully to the last sentence in his whispered prayer. 

“Now Lord, Mommy can be with You in heaven.”

Do not be fooled

Do not be fooled

Do not think of me as weak, just because I fall in love,

Rather think about your own heart that can not love to the extent I am able to, everyday.

Do not think you can control me just because I share eagerly,

Rather look at who you are for taking advantage of this generosity.

Do not think me worthless now that I’ve shared my passion with you,

Rather, remind yourself of damage caused by abuse and misuse of this flame.

Do not think of me as strange just because I dream for better every day,

Rather look to see your own growth and measure how far you’ve come and been.

Do not think of me as ignorant because of my beauty,

for my strength lay beyond the feel of my chocolate skin.

Do not perceive my tears as a symbol of weak character

Rather remember them as a product of inner strength.

For tomorrow I stand up and I go on.

I bridge the gaps you think will make me fail.

Because I am a woman, I find a way to make me better then you could ever tell me I am.

I am a woman, and my only weakness is believing you when you lessen my worth with slanderous words of untruth.

Do not be fooled for I am proud to be a woman.

By Leonie Adonis

Window shopping

Window shopping

The feeling is rather unexplained and I wish that I could let you into my head,

So that I wouldn't have to struggle so, to find the words that will make you understand, but I will try………………………………

It feels like longing, but it’s not longing because you can long for almost anything it’s much more like missing, like when you want the past to recreate it’s self into the present. The only deference is you’ve never lived that past. You’ve never experienced the very thing you’re missing.

It’s like window shopping, looking through the window of your favorite store and imagining the feel of your skin in that dress or your home with that specific tall vase standing in the corner on that shelf of the same shade, and those new plush scatter cushions. You can almost see how it brightens up the room that smells of newly polished wood, and yet, you’ve never had your own place nor the vase on the corner table of the same shade. 
You never had the comfort of scatter cushions or been in a room that’s even slightly similar to what you imagine yours to be, but  the feeling, this feeling of longing, of missing  it lingers in your chest for those moments you stand with you nose pressed up against the cold store window.

Sometimes it’s more then surreal.

It’s like closing your eyes and imagining yourself sitting on the rocks with your feet covered in sand at the beach looking out over the vast expanse of the calming ocean, the smell of ocean winds filling your lungs and then escaping on the exhale, the feeling of cool air against your skin while listening to the waves rolling onto shore.

Except your blind and you’ve never been to the beach.

Like I said on most days, It feels like longing, but it’s not longing cause my heart can long for almost anything it’s much more like missing, like when I want the past to recreate it’s self into the present. 
The only deference is I’ve never lived that past & I’ve never experienced the very thing I’m missing.

And I keep thinking ………

How is it even possible that I can miss, something that I have never had.

2 March 2011

“I forgive you”

I forgive you

For the hurt.

For the misunderstandings and frustrations

For the anger, for a lot of the anger

And for the tears, for all of the tears

For the scars that are visible and for those that are not

For the trauma of emotions,

And the beatings, and the blood

For the blue thighs and cut marks

And for the great loss, in will to live.

For the side effects I still carry with me

For the ones that I have to work through everyday

For the counseling and the guilt.

Apparently, these are the words I need to say

So …..

For a future that’s better than the past

and for the things I will succeed in too

I stand in front of the mirror today

To say that “I forgive you”.

                                                                                                                                                   By LA