Here Comes Treble: Mind Games
...The ice-cream was placed in front of us in, with separate little jugs of steaming sauce. We both poured a generous dollop of sauce over our ice-cream and dug in. After a few mouthfuls, I turned to Leon and said, “I think there’s something not quite right about this chocolate sauce. How does yours taste?”...
Isabel Bradley reveals that things are not always what they appear to be.
Recently, a friend of ours was at the receiving end of a credit card scam. This is a country where crime is rife and one has to always be aware that scams and schemes are the norm. Brian is as aware as anyone, but he was persuaded to trust someone who offered to help him when the automatic teller machine didn’t process his request as easily as usual. The ‘gentleman’ convinced Brian to give him his card, and had it in his possession just long enough to somehow copy it.
Next day, expensive purchases were being made against Brian’s credit card account while he was sitting quietly in his office. He knew about it because his bank sends automatic text messages to clients when transactions are made against any of their accounts and he was receiving messages at an alarming rate.
Of course, Brian reported these fraudulent withdrawals from his account to the bank immediately, explaining what happened the previous day at the ATM. South African banks are all too aware of this type of crime, and they didn’t charge his account with the stolen amounts. They cancelled his card, issued a new one with a new account number and, hopefully, tracked down the scamster.
Brian told us this tale of horror, and it nestled in our minds, waiting to pounce.
A few days ago, I was working at my computer, sending an e-mail thanking our insurance company for the excellent service they offer when a vehicle is stolen or in an accident. Leon had left ten minutes earlier to draw some cash from a nearby ATM before going on to other business. As I typed, the phone rang. It was Leon, sounding rather panic-stricken. “I think my car’s been stolen!” I heard him say, my mind still on vehicle insurance.
I replied, “Oh, s…t! Just let me find that emergency number from the Insurance Company, though you should have it in your mobile phone…”
Rather irritable, my love interrupted, “I don’t need the insurance company, I need the BANK!”
“But your car’s been stolen!” I retorted.
“No, not my car – my CARD – my bank card, I need the number to cancel it… Oh, don’t worry, I’m going into the bank!” and the call ended. My vehicle-fixated mind had definitely led me astray on this occasion.
Meantime, Leon’s mind had obviously taken him back to Brian’s horror story the minute he experienced a problem at the ATM and a perfectly innocent man tried to be sympathetic. When he spoke to a consultant at the bank, Leon was assured that the card was his, had not been swapped for a false card, and that the ATM he’d tried to use was merely out of order.
The card, a ‘new generation’ debit card he’d recently received from the bank, felt less solid than Leon’s credit card, didn’t have his name on it, and the embossing of the account number wasn’t as definite. What’s more, he’d not signed before using it, so when the ATM refused to accept his pin number and spat the card out, his mind led him along the ‘scam’ pathway.
Thank goodness, nothing criminal happened, and all was well.
As I thought about how our minds had played these tricks on me and Leon, I remembered with a chuckle, another time when strange things had happened when mental expectations were brought into play. We were enjoying a quiz evening and meal at a pub with a group of friends. The food was mediocre – dry fish and chips. We ordered ice-cream with hot chocolate sauce to follow, thinking, “How wrong can this go – tried and trusted, ice cream from a mass-producer, chocolate sauce? Should be good!”
The ice-cream was placed in front of us in, with separate little jugs of steaming sauce. We both poured a generous dollop of sauce over our ice-cream and dug in. After a few mouthfuls, I turned to Leon and said, “I think there’s something not quite right about this chocolate sauce. How does yours taste?”
“Also not great. Hang on a sec,” he replied, and dipping his finger into the jug, took a good taste. He pulled a sour face. He took a second dip, looked really thoughtful, then said, “This isn’t chocolate sauce at all,” he said, “it’s SOY sauce.”
The waitress was called and apologised profusely, explaining that the chocolate sauce and the soy sauce were both served in the same little stainless-steel jugs and were always placed on the same shelf. How the waiting staff were expected to know the difference, she didn’t explain, but she’d obviously picked up the wrong jugs by mistake. Embarrassed, she did the right thing and brought us fresh ice cream and chocolate sauce, which we and all our chuckling friends taste-tested before we poured it on.
Our minds, however, were now convinced that ice-cream with brown sauce on it was bound to be ice-cream with soy sauce, and no matter how hard we tried to enjoy the real thing, our taste-buds agreed with our minds. We gave up, and didn’t order ice cream with hot chocolate sauce for many months.
When the mind makes a decision, it is very hard to shift its point of view, and it can indeed lead one down some strange pathways.
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
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by Isabel Bradley
