Rest in Peace Our Beloved Arch. What an outpouring yesterday. From across the globe. So much Love, Respect and Adoration. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a Giant amongst Men. And this sentiment was echoed by so many. It made me think about what people will say about the rest of us when we are no longer here. A person should think about these things. And when you do, you will strive to be a better person in life. Be more lekke with others. Don’t be a vark. Because you want your funeral service to be fabulous. Especially that part of your funeral service where others get to talk about you.
I’ve been to a few funerals in my lifetime where I had to hide my grin when I realized that people were struggling to find a nice thing to say about the dearly departed. And it’s even funnier when you realize that the entire congregation knows that dinges was not a lovely character at all.
I’ve even attended a service where the Pastor decided to say bugger all about the person chilling in the coffin and instead proceeded to deliver a beautiful sermon about the importance of being kind to each other. Now while that’s a movingly important message indeed, you’re kinda preaching to the dead if the main culprit, her of UNKINDNESS DOT COM, is now gracing the cover of the freshly photocopied funeral bulletin.
Wait. Let me then maybe backtrack so ‘n bietjie. Maybe people who are not lovely should NOT strive to be lekke people and instead just continue to roam the planet as horrible people. And then when we talk at their memorial or funeral service, we simply get up and tell the truth and “celebrate” them for who they really were. THAT most certainly would make these gatherings so much more enjoyable. After all, we all know that most of these things have an after party with snack platters, pots of curry, and booze from the boot of Uncle Whatsisname’s car. So we might as well gear up for the party, balls to the wall.
Imagine being able to stroll up to the podium, knowingly sneak a glance at the coffin, clear your throat, whip out your phone, and gooi:
“Graham was married to Jill, but was having an affair with Nicole from Milnerton. I know that most of us sitting here knew about it. Many of us here tried to talk to him – even I tried to talk to him out of the affair – but he wouldn’t listen. He was adamant that he was no longer in love with his wife but was now in love with Nicole. Even Graham’s brothers couldn’t talk to him about this. He wouldn’t listen to them. Essentially because one brother also has a skelmpie on the side and the other brother is an alcoholic. Their family has always been deurmekaar. They are all here – they will tell you themselves. You’ll see at the after party.
I see Graham’s neighbours are also here. I remember Graham always talking shit about his neighbours. He knew that you guys called him ‘suurlamoen gevriet’ behind his back. Graham mos never smiled. Whether it was at work or at home. He maintained that smiling was overrated and it took too much effort, for zero reward. You guys who lived in the same road with Graham wanted him to join the neighbourhood watch but he refused. He used to say to me: ‘their houses are so kak why would anyone want to break in! I’m not missing out on my sleep because of those delusional losers.'”
That is the kinda tribute that can go either way. But whatever happens, if you didn’t know the real Graham, you will know who he was after that day.
Enough about that. We started with the Arch. Let’s end with The Arch. Today he would want us to smile. I have been lucky enough to meet him a few times and he thoroughly enjoyed laughing. He thoroughly enjoyed telling jokes. And he thoroughly enjoyed laughing at his own jokes!
This is the week when people are starting to give other people presents. I panic when someone hands me a gift, and then asks me to open it while they are looking on. It’s stressful because there can only be one reaction. You are meant to go O WOW MAN THANK YOU! So moments before you rip the wrapping apart, you reach deep down to go and fetch that necessary reaction. And most of us are actually quite good at this. And then everything happens really quickly. DO YOU LIKE IT / O MY GOD I LOVE IT / YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE / DON’T BE SILLY / THIS GIFTWRAP IS GORGEOUS I DON’T WANT TO TEAR IT / I FEEL SO BAD I DIDN’T GET YOU ANYTHING / AG DON’T WIORRY! And the moment is over in under 4 minutes. Exhale. You were brilliant doll.
It’s a bit trickier when it’s a shitty gift though. Now don’t come at me with Marc there’s no such thing as a shitty gift. Ja jaaa, I know it’s the thought that counts but some gifts really make me question some people’s thoughts. I cannot tell you how many times people have given me baseball caps. I ask you with tears in my teargas eyes, onto what head am I going to squeeze that cap! No man! I know like I know that you dug that cap out from some goodie bag.
And when it comes to getting people gifts, I’m telling you vouchers is the way to go. (Ja I did think that that sentence should read vouchers are the way to go – but if you consider the giving of vouchers as a singular gesture then you can get away with: vouchers is the way to go). And your voucher can be big or small. Any amount that you can afford. And then let the people buy their own books, their own music, their own t-shirt. Dan is ammal happy. Even while I’m typing this I’m remembering that I still have a voucher somewhere at the bottom of my backpack. And the memory is making me smile and curl my big toes ever so slightly. These are good reactions.
Vouchers of te not, have a lovely little festive break. A strange festive season I know but make the best of it. It’s not all bad. You can now see only the people you’ve ever really wanted to see over the festive period. For the ones who you don’t want to see, simply say sorry man – I can’t see you’s – I’ve been exposed. Everyone’s been using that line lately. It’s very acceptable. And even while you’re reading this, you know that there are always people who you don’t want to see. Some of them are even related to you. Some of them distantly related. Aunty dinges’s husband’s son-in-law’s brother’s niece from Genadendal. I have nothing against Genadendal – it’s just a lekke word to use.
My point is, when visiting someone, you should always have something interesting to say. Make an effort. You came into their lounge. You can’t just sit there on the other side of the dining room table, dipping the crumbed chicken strips in spicy mayo, and not have a single word to say. I mean how difficult can it be. Pick a topic, any topic. Loadshedding. Omnicron. Zuma’s illusive illness. Anything. But no. Not a peep from some mense. These are the people who steal precious moments from you that you can never ever get back. You look at them and think yirre all I want to do right now is sit on my bed and watch netflix with a bowl of trifle –ma nou kyk ek in jou pudding gesig vas!
They are happy to just stare blankly. I have encountered many of them, younger and older. You just want to klap them twice with a stuk snoek to get some kind of reaction. But that wouldn’t be fair on the snoek.
But hey now – look at God – you don’t have to look at any of those faces this year – you’ve mos been exposed!
It’s quite terrible to live in a world where you desperately want to tell someone YOUR MOER but you can’t. And you can’t for various reasons. Maybe because it’s your boss. Maybe because it’s your teenage child. Maybe because it’s your neighbour. Or, as is the case with me, maybe because you know you will regret it when the sun comes up because you are actually just a nice person who does not want drama in his day, who does not want drama on any day, who does not want drama for the rest of his life.
For those of you who are not familiar with the term YOUR MOER, it’s a term easily heard during a heated argument in Cape Town. If you want me to get to the meaning really quickly, and please do forgive me for this if you are listening to this recording with your little darlings – actually close their ears quickly – I’ll count to six – 1 2 3 4 5 6 – for the rest of the world YOUR MOER means go fuck yourself – hello you can unblock your child’s ears now!
Social media has been my best teacher when it comes to getting me to exercise restraint. Just this morning I told someone that it is crucial that we all come to the realization that not everybody on social media has matric with exemption. And once you understand that the cousins of the three stooges are alive and well and eagerly ready to comment on your posts, you will be ok. But here’s the thing: don’t engage baby. I repeat DO NOT ENGAGE! Those people will be the reason for your arteries getting blocked.
On 3 occasions, I responded to shitty comments. They must have caught me on a Sauvignon Blanc day. Yirre. That’s the other thing man, I’ve said this a lot but I’m obviously not taking my own valuable advice, put your phone off if you move on to the second glass! Anyhoo, the point is that on all 3 occasions I felt really shit after responding. It’s mos human nature to want to “put somebody on her place”. As we so confidently boast in Cape Town – “o ek het nou lekke vir haar op haar plek gesit!”.
But the thing is that it’s often quite difficult to ignore the trolls. You have to be a well-balanced person who’s able to see the comment, quietly roll your teargas eyes and move on. Well that’s if you even READ the comments. Look, my other thing is that I actually seldom read comments for fear of stumbling upon the comment left by that one doos. Because that’s the comment that will stay in my head until maghrieb next Wednesday. Not the four hundred other nice comments, just that one. It’s the way I’m built. So to be safe and happy, I mostly don’t go through comments. My close friends know this about me so they will usually message me if they think there’s a troll comment that needs to removed.
This happened last week when someone said I was going to burn in hell because I live with Anwar. Now of course I know that’s not true, because everyone knows that gays don’t like being upstaged and Lucifer just brings wayyy too much heat. Nancy, Heaven with Aircon is more my vibe.
So of course I was asked to remove the comment after it had been sitting there for a good few hours. The beautiful thing was that she had been completely ignored by everyone else! Shame man. There’s nothing worse than being ignored, people go to therapy for stuff like that. Of course I didn’t immediately remove the comment and block her like the good Lord and all the Angels wanted me to. Instead, I had a moment of weakness and clicked on her profile. If I was a smoker, I would have at this point, sat back, lit a entjie, and slowly exhaled as I scrolled through her album, harshly criticizing every single pic of hers that I saw:
“your husband doesn’t smile on any of his pics – I also wouldn’t if I was in his shoes” / OR “jirre did you really wear that on your wedding day..shame..”…/ OR “thank goodness for facemasks – now we don’t have to look at your suur gevriet the whole day”…
Ag you know, all the normal things you say to yourself and don’t mean when people make you cross.
And they do make a person cross! Why are they making personal confrontational comments on a person’s page man, comments they would never make if they bumped into you in Shoprite. I mean seriously, there are certain things we only say to our friends in private, around the kitchen table, while putting brown sugar in the tea.
Yesterday afternoon at a coffee shop, I saw a lady at the next table with a dry hairstyle that looked like an upside down soup bowl. She was way too pretty for that do. All I wanted to do was go up to her, hug her, pay for her coffee and give her a lift to the nearest hairdresser, my treat. But I didn’t do that, because you can’t just do that because we are civilized human beings. Mind your own business and be nice, that’s all you need to do. ON AND OFF SOCIAL MEDIA!
So ja, back to my troll the other day. Eventually I took myself out of her profile, blocked her, prayed for her and more particularly for her husband, and carried on with my life.
By the time you’re done reading this, you’ll be 5 minutes older. Or perhaps even 65 minutes older. Depending on how much you bunked English when you were at school.
We grow older by the second. All of us. It’s a fact. On Saturday 4 December I turned 54. I generally don’t do birthday bashes but I really wanted to share this one with friends because it’s been a kak time on the planet and in spite of the chaos I had a lot to be grateful for. The idea of drinks with friends was quickly shelved because of Aunty Omicron. So Anwar and I went out on our own.
Growing up, my parents never made a major fuss out of our birthdays. I think they were just too busy with the things of the Lord. So we would do amazing things like go to the Spur whenever we all had the time to. This was a good thing as I then never really had the urge to go all out with birthdays. To such an extent that it was not peculiar at all when I made it clear that I didn’t want a 21st birthday party. You know, that traditional one where a hall would be hired along with ten girls and ten boys, all in matching outfits, and a whole 21st march thingie with a 21st key, signaling the beginning of that new chapter in your life where you could do things that big people do. Ja. You had to be 21 back then. What a throwback. The digits are almost swopped around now.
Birthdays on social media can actually cause a great deal of anxiety. There’s a social media way in which birthdays are done. And I’ve noticed that different people play the game differently. Some give us a countdown. We all know one person like this. She usually posts “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH! SIXTEEN DAYS TO GO!” Why are you doing this! There’s a lot going on in the world right now. We will wish you on your birthday but seriously, the countdown is bit much if you are not Desmond Tutu. Facebook will mos remind us on the morning that it’s your birthday.
And then the day after your birthday, you are required to post a THANK YOU FOR ALL THE MESSAGES thingie. I did that, I had to. Because I received the most beautiful wishes from so many people. But the THANK YOU post is also a decent way in which to get the slack people who forgot to wish you to wake the fudge up!🙂
But it doesn’t stop there for some. The IT’S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH girl continues after her birthday with IT’S STILL MY BIRTHDAY MONTH! I dunno hey. There’s a reason we call it a birthday. It happened on one day. Your brave mommy did not scream for 31 days.
Back to my birthday lunch on Saturday. So like the good responsible citizens that we are, Anwar and I decided to go on our own, lunch for 2, at La Perla in Sea Point. La Perla is one of those strange Cape Town restaurants that’s been around forever. It’s not cheap which is why it’s important to be seen there at least once every two years. We had the best time. I particularly enjoyed the random chat with 2 very entertaining chaps who were out celebrating because they had both finally decided to divorce their wives who happen to be sisters. Both gals are helluva annoying, we were told. The guys just could not decide who was actually married to the more annoying sister. (I quietly wondered if the sisters were out somewhere having celebratory tequila shots too!).
And so I wake up today, a remarkably sexy 54-year-old man, on a Monday morning after the weekend that was. And as usual I am flippin relieved that the actual birthday is over because now I can get on with life until 4 December next year, when everyone will again remind me that I am a year older. I wear my age with pride because I know that I’ve done a shit load of amazing things with my life up until now. The irritating thing is that when I announce my age for whatever reason (usually not prompted by me), there’s a pause from my younger friends. Quickly followed by YOH! It is that YOH that is loaded. It means one of two things – you’re old! – or my personal favourite: you look fukkin amazing! I prefer to go with the latter.
To the YOH people I say, get a perspective, bladdywill. We are all younger than somebody else. We are all older than somebody else. Somewhere in the world right now, there’s a 90 year old telling a 74 year old: enjoy your 70’s kiddo. So make every moment damn fabulous, because by the time your done saying YOH, you’re two seconds closer to dying. Live a little.
