Between Thoughts -Intellectual Musings

“ a lifelong, unmedicated relationship with my own pet peeves”..

Let me be upfront with you.

I can be petty. *Very* petty. Embarrassingly petty, in fact. And before you judge me, know that I have not yet scheduled a single therapy session about any of what follows. I have considered it. I have rejected it. I am at peace with my pettiness.

But first, a definition — because I am, after all, a man with a PhD, and we cannot begin anything without framing the epistemology:

*A pet peeve is a minor, specific irritation that bothers you more than it reasonably should. It is, essentially, your favourite thing to be annoyed by. You know it’s small. You know it’s irrational. You know it changes nothing. And yet — it absolutely drives you up the wall.*

With that scholarly grounding established, allow me to present my ten. Unfiltered. Unapologetic. Unmedicated.


1. The Speaker Phone DJ

There is a special circle of Dante’s Inferno reserved for people who use their phones on full loudspeaker in public spaces. Airport lounges. Business class cabins. Taxis. Restaurants. Everywhere.

I call them **Speaker Phone DJs** — or SPDJs — because they have, without your consent, made you their audience.

Here is my grievance: I have a PhD. My IQ, I am told, is operating at a reasonably advanced frequency. And yet, not even my highly trained cognitive architecture can block out a SPDJ. The human brain is simply not engineered to unhear someone else’s speakerphone conversation happening eighteen centimetres from your left ear.

What makes it worse? The content is never worth it. This is not Sunday World material. This is not *Mgosi*. No one is confessing affairs or revealing hidden fortunes. It is, most often, someone loudly informing another person of their precise GPS coordinates. “I’m near Clicks.” Groundbreaking.

I once took a taxi — as I often do, because I am a social scientist who believes in reading the economic belly of the nation — and the driver was on speakerphone the entire journey. The conversation started innocuously enough. It did not end innocuously. By the time we reached my stop, I had been involuntarily educated about a man’s anatomy, a married woman’s anatomy, and the procurement channels for certain traditional herbs in KwaZulu-Natal.

I had not asked for this knowledge. I did not want this knowledge. I cannot unknow this knowledge.

SPDJs must be stopped.


2. “I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This”

You open a WhatsApp status. A motivational speaker stares into the camera with the gravity of someone about to deliver the Sermon on the Mount. They clear their throat. And then they say it:

*”I don’t know who needs to hear this, but...”*

My blood pressure. Immediately.

If you do not know who needs to hear it — why are you saying it?. That is not humility. That is not wisdom. That is a rhetorical device deployed to give generic advice about the false intimacy of divine targeting. You are not a prophet. The algorithm recommended you to me. These are different things.

Just say what you want to say. Start with the thing. You do not need a mysterious preamble. I am already watching. I am already listening. I need no further enticement.

I find this unreasonably irritating. I know I find it unreasonably irritating. I accept this about myself. No therapy. Moving on.


3. The Hoot at Green

Picture the scene. Traffic lights. Red. I am at the front. I am paying full attention — no phone, no multitasking, no distractions. My entire neurological system is focused on one task: wait for green, then go.

The light turns green. I have not delayed. My foot is already moving. I have not stopped for coffee. I have not written a press release. I have not called my mother. I am *going*.

And then — *HOOOOOOT.*

Not once. Several times. Frantic. Urgent. Like I am a Formula 1 pit crew that has just fumbled a tyre change on lap forty-seven.

What exactly are you expecting? A standing start? A zero-to-sixty launch with professional timing and KPI measurement? We are in a 2011 Toyota Corolla on William Nicol Drive, sir. Calm yourself.

This is a pet peeve I will die with. There will be no peace. There will be no growth. I have made my decision.


4. The Unsolicited Interpreter

In a meeting. I am speaking. I am mid-sentence, constructing a thought, navigating language with the care of someone who thinks in at least three tongues.

And then someone — usually not the smartest person in the room, I need you to note — leans forward and says:

*”What Mzamo is trying to say is…“*

Excuse me?

I beg your pardon?

Who died and left you the Ministry of Mzamo Translation? I did not apply for an interpreter. I was not allocated one. My English, while sometimes creative, is not a coded language requiring decryption. I have a PhD. I have delivered speeches on multiple continents. I have survived Google all-hands meetings. I think I can complete my own sentences.

The audacity of the self-appointed decoder is breathtaking — especially when they are neither telepathic nor, let’s be honest, operating at a vocabulary level that should qualify them to paraphrase anyone.

Do not interpret me. Ask me. Or — radical concept — *wait for me to finish.*

I am digging my heels on this one. No moral software upgrade. No therapy. Non-negotiable.


5. Litter From a Moving Vehicle

You are driving. The window comes down. Out flies a packet. A bottle. A bag. Whatever it is — it now belongs to the road, the wind, the earth, and everyone except the person who produced it.

I watch this happen and I set aside everything the Bible taught me about judgment. I set aside “let he who is without sin.” I set aside the instruction to love your neighbour. I set aside all of it.

Because what you have just done says something about you. Not about the road. About *you*.

There is a woman on YouTube — I think about her often, probably more than is healthy — who witnessed a driver toss litter from their window. She followed them. She waited. When they stopped and their windows were open, she picked up a large rubbish bin and deposited its entire contents into their car.

That woman is my spirit animal. She is the justice system I deserve. She is doing God’s work in a way that no formal institution currently can.

I am not yet at her level. But I am training.


6. “I’m Going to Africa”

People. Colleagues. Educated, well-travelled professionals, sometimes with postgraduate degrees and valid passports.

They are in Cape Town. They are flying to Cairo. And they announce, with great confidence:

*”I’m going to Africa next week.”*

Where do you think you currently are? Have you looked out the window? Have you opened a map — Google, Apple, physical, any format — recently?

South Africa is in Africa. It has always been in Africa. It will continue to be in Africa. The continent did not relocate while you were busy. There are fifty-four countries on this landmass, and you are standing in one of them.

This would be geography, Grade 8. I do not know what happened.

What makes this particular peeve especially spicy is when it comes from the citizens of what I affectionately call *the Country of Cape Town* — those who still speak warmly of tarred roads as colonialism’s great gift, whose party structure features titles like Federal Leader, Federal Chairperson, and Deputy Federal Chairperson. *Federal.* In a constitutionally unitary state. Should we be worried? Are they signalling? I am watching. We are all watching.



7. *(Reserved for the Petty Gods — Coming Soon)*

I have so many peeves that I miscounted. This is what pettiness does to a man. More to follow. Do not @ me.

8. “Do You Know So-and-So from Senegal?”

I am in Silicon Valley. Someone asks where I’m from. I say South Africa. They nod warmly and then — without hesitation, without irony, without a flicker of geographic self-awareness — ask:

*”Oh, do you know Kofi from Senegal?”*

I need you to hold this moment with me.

South Africa and Senegal share a continent. That is where the relationship ends. The distance between Johannesburg and Dakar is roughly the same as the distance between New York and London. There are 1.4 billion people on this continent. I do not know them all. I have not met them all. I have no directory.

For context: I am from Cape Town. I do not know everyone in Khayelitsha — a township in my own city, population over a million. So the idea that I might personally know a specific individual in a country 8,000 kilometres north of mine, simply because we share continental membership, is a form of ignorance so spectacular it briefly transcends annoyance and enters the realm of performance art.

What makes it worse — and this is the part that truly gets me — is when this comes from a highly educated person. A computer scientist. A researcher. Someone with credentials and publications and probably a standing desk.

The most dangerous person on earth, I have concluded, is someone who is highly educated and deeply ignorant. Knowledge without curiosity is a very expensive blindspot.

And yes — before you ask — no, I do not have a lion as a pet either.



9. “Oga, It’s My Birthday Today“

I land in Nigeria. I approach passport control. The officer looks at my document, looks at me, and says — without whisper, without shame, without so much as a wink:

*”Oga. It’s my birthday today.“*

In the name of every saint and saviour.

This is not a subtle shake. This is not a quiet envelope under a quiet table. This is a public service announcement. A broadcast. A government-issued declaration of expectation, delivered in the arrivals hall, in front of witnesses, at full conversational volume.

I have experienced variations of this more times than I have bothered to count. Shoes have been requested. Valuables have been hinted at. Dollars and Naira have both been accepted.

I want to be clear: I am not naïve about how corruption works across the continent. I am a social scientist. I understand the systems and the structural conditions that produce this behaviour. I have read the papers.

But as a tourism advert? This is suboptimal.

When the first thing a visitor experiences is a birthday announcement from a man in uniform holding your passport, the destination marketing budget is doing overtime for nothing. It is not the warm welcome. It is not the first impression that converts a transit visitor into a returning tourist.

It needs to end. And I say this with love. And with slight exasperation.

10. The Long Voice Note

I opened WhatsApp. There is a voice note. It is four minutes and thirty-seven seconds long.

Four. Minutes. And. Thirty-seven. Seconds.

I have questions. Who do you think you are? Is this a podcast? Have you been commissioned? Is there an episode number? Should I subscribe on Spotify?

A voice note is not a TED Talk. It is not a keynote. It is not a radio programme. It is a convenience tool for moments when typing is genuinely not feasible — driving, perhaps, or when your hands are otherwise engaged. It has a suggested runtime of under sixty seconds. It has a hard limit of thirty if what you are sending is not an emergency.

If your voice note requires the listener to get comfortable, maybe make a cup of tea, and mentally prepare — you need to make a phone call. Or, God forbid, type the thing.

I will not be listening to the full four minutes. I will be scrubbing the timeline looking for the actual point. I will resent every second of it.

And I will not be going to therapy about this either.

*There you have it. Ten peeves — nine accounted for, one still pending (see Peeve 7, filed under ‘to be addressed when pettiness levels are fully recharged’). I am aware that none of these will change the world. I am aware that therapy might help. I am choosing, consciously and deliberately, not to pursue it.*

*Some hills are worth dying on.*

*These are mine.*

Dr. Mzamo Masito – Between Thoughts — Intellectual Musings.
Where the uncomfortable questions get a seat at the table.