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Poisoned by bat-faced barbarians

What do you want for Christmas,” snapped Brenda.

Well,” I said, “why not just stick with what you give me every year – ptomaine poisoning.”

Brenda’s Christmas dinner is an impressively toxic feast infused with pathogenic bacteria and garnished with salmonella. She thinks I don’t see her scraping her food off under the table. We go through a dog a year like that. Our loathsome loinfruit, Clive, seems immune to the peripatetic parasites that are drawn to Brenda’s cooking like cabinet minister’s are drawn to five star hotels.

Actually, this year I expect to get more than just alimentary mycotoxicosis. I also want a blue light to stick on the dashboard of the Hyundai. Much like Gauteng’s Housing MEC, Humphrey Mmemezi, I too have my share of emergencies that require high speeds and a cavalier disregard for anyone who gets in my way.

When Comrade Humphrey’s driver smashed into 18-year-old Thomas Ferreira last weekend, knocking him off his bike and into a coma, they were on their way to an emergency. Nobody has fully explained the nature of this emergency. And why should they? It’s bloody obvious. Gauteng has a backlog of 850 000 homes. If that isn’t an emergency for the housing minister, then I don’t know what is.

On the other hand, he does have eight children and it was a Saturday, so the emergency might not have been directly related to ameliorating the plight of the homeless, per se. Then again, one of the kids might have been locked out of the house, which clearly makes it a housing-related emergency.

Apparently anyone is allowed to apply for permission to accessorise their car with a flashing blue light. Whether you get it or not is another matter. My emergencies mostly involve hitting the bottle store before it closes and getting to Muizenberg for a surf before the sharks arrive for breakfast. I am sure you all have your own emergencies and there is no reason why you shouldn’t also apply for a blue light permit. Make sure you get a gun license at the same time because a lot of people are slow in moving out of the way and it might be quicker to shoot them in the head.

What else happened this week? There was a bunch of stuff I wanted to say and now I can’t remember anything. At one point, after reading too many newspapers, I became so saturated with outrage that I passed out on the couch. Brenda found me like that and instead of calling the paramedics, she slapped me across the head, accused me of being drunk and threatened to castrate me with a blunt steak knife if I didn’t unpack the dishwasher. I opted for castration but she didn’t have the balls to carry it out.

Let’s see. Some genius called Moodley went and cut his outlook on our debt rating from stable to negative, causing the rand to depreciate, bonds to fall and my brain to seize up. It took three double brandies and Coke to unjam the pistons. Oh, wait. It wasn’t Moodley at all. It was someone called Moody, or someone who works at Moody’s. Or something. Anyway. Who do they think they are? They say they did it because our darkies are getting restless and the ANC has stuck it’s head up its own ass and has begun eating itself from the inside out. Apparently it’s all Julius Malema’s fault.

Speaking of which. Given the ANC’s current predilection for autocannibalism, Julius should welcome his one-year suspension. It’s a lot safer on the outside. It also gives him time to gather his thought. And to finish those “exams” he’s been writing in Polokwane. Those aren’t exams, Julius. Those are called cheques. Shhh. Don’t wake the hush money.

What else. Durban is hosting the UN climate change talks soon, although talking never changed anything, least of all the climate. The electricity department was hoping to show off their second-hand German wind turbines on the Bluff but the Muesli Militia put a spanner in their works. Apparently the giant blades would endanger the lives of hundreds of slit-faced bats living at the local military base. Those are parabats, you idiots. Their faces look like that from jumping out of aeroplanes. Maybe the turbines could be used to blow the Engen refinery’s pollution directly into management’s offices and give residents the chance to breath clean air for the first time in ages.

On a happier note, South Africa is now among the top ten consumers of liquor in the world. Well done, guys! It’s been a long time since we made the top ten in anything. Almost 40% of the country starts drinking on Friday and doesn’t stop until Monday morning. If we hope to make number one, we are going to have to try harder. Perhaps we should start on a Thursday and stop the following Tuesday. Keep Wednesday for the hangover. And whatever surgery you might need. And for your appearance in court, divorce or criminal.

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