Speak to anyone who has known me since my highschool days and they will tell you that Sandton City and I are like Oreo cookies and milk, like sunshine and strappy sandals, like Thelma & Louise. From as far back as I can remember I have orientated myself by looking at the horizon and spotting that little green triangle atop the old 70s Sandton City tower – when I first moved back from London and the powers that be granted me a driver's license I knew I was lost if I couldn't see the triangle.
Sandton City and I go waaaaaaay back...
When I was 13 years old I took pride in being a mall rat. My friends and I would get dressed up to the nines in platforms that would scare off a Spice Girl and do laps around Sandton City – from Entrance 12 to the movies to the grassy patch by the old library and back. We tried doing the same routine once or twice at Fourways Mall when it was first built but we ultimately returned to familiar territory.
When I was 16 years old and had moved from a co-ed government school in the North to an all-girls private school in the East, I tried to like Eastgate Mall but found its layout illogical and it's food court lacking (Yip, the Sandton snob gene reared it's highlighted head at an early age). The irony was that my allowance combined with the R12 an hour I earned at American Swiss on weekends couldn't by me an outfit at Monsieur Pricé let alone a pair of El Danté boots. *wow, talk about memories coming flooding back*
At 23 I moved back to sunny SA after a five-year stint in the land of pub lunches and rush-hour tube scrums. The skyline had changed dramatically but amid the new hotels and office towers the little green triangle still glowed. It was more army green now than neon, but it glowed. When it came time to find a job to help me starve a little less as a starving artist it came as no surprise to my mother when my first port of call was Sandton City and it's snazzy, upmarket extension Nelson Mandela Square. It came as less of a surprise when a mere four hours into my job hunt I had been hired by an art gallery conveniently located directly opposite the of-the-moment YDE (Young Designers Emporium). In my first couple of months as a gallery manager (a.k.a security guard for stock) I mistook my lunchbreak for a retail therapy session and found myself requiring an overdraft facility for the first time in my life.
And so began my love/hate relationship with Sandton City. I made the mistake of mixing business with pleasure, turning a place of fun into a place of work. I only worked at the gallery formally for a year or so but have been drafted back under the premise of a favour several times over the past couple of years. The latest drafting has involved shop-sitting from 5pm to 9pm every night since the beginning of June with occasional '9am to 9pm' favour thrown into the mix.
*sigh* At least the ultra-trendy coffee shop around the corner throws in two free mini Lindt dark chocolates when I order my daily skinny double-shot latte. You know you come to Sandton waaaaaay to often when you start getting free stuff...
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