We live in testing times

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My wallet containing a credit card, driver’s licence, R12.50 and a small but well-behaved family of weevils has mysteriously vanished into a black hole. I made the money back by dressing up in a monkey suit and dancing outside the Spar on Friday morning. Afterwards I went to the traffic department.

The parking lot was jammed with crudely fashioned bivouacs and cooking fires. Scrawny goats roamed freely and chickens pecked at the tarmac. I half expected to see Angelina Jolie appear through the smoke, designer kaffiyeh wrapped around her swan-like neck, flawless belly swollen with a fresh batch of perfectly formed foetuses.

I hired a Congolese corsair to guarantee me safe passage to the entrance where a brute with knife scars and no neck was lashing out at the frenzied hordes trying to get in. It was like the fall of Saigon. With seconds to spare before the 3pm curfew, I slipped past Cerberus and was in.

If outside looked like a refugee camp, inside looked like Catholic limbo. Ben in the bardo. Sad hollow-eyed people drifted from counter to counter, lips moving in silent prayer. I joined the other lost souls in the queue of the damned that led to Persephone’s cubicle. The earth revolved, reptiles evolved, another ice age came and went. Moments before I died of natural causes, a bullet-proof window was all that stood between me and her.

She opened her mouth and showed me her terrible teeth. Blinking her goatish eyes, she spat a pomegranate seed onto the floor.

“Next,” she bleated. It is easier to pass through the eye of a camel than it is to follow the goddess of the underworld’s instructions.

“Collect form RT6 from counter 8 and form WM3 from counter 4 then go to room 101 in the east wing for fingerprints and room 309 in the west wing for the eye test then go to the cashier at counter 2 on the 3rd floor and afterwards take your receipt to counter 3 on the 2nd floor.”

As I proceeded from pillar to purgatory, I encountered knots of strange misshapen creatures. Being closing time on a Friday, many of them were moving too quickly for their fat little legs. A grizzled hireling took my fingers and pressed them into an ink pad. Said he had been doing it for 25 years. He told me to relax my thumbs. My thumbs are the most relaxed part of my body. I said I didn’t know what else I could do to get them to calm down. This made both him and my thumbs even more tense.

I could barely hear what he was saying above the extraordinary gibbering noises that civil servants make when the weekend is upon them.

“Eye test,” he shouted. “But I lost my driver’s licence, not my eyesight,” I shouted. My vision is more white rhino than tawny eagle and I felt like an athlete being asked to take a urine test after drinking a bottle of dehydrochlormethyl-testosterone.

By a stroke of luck, the regular tester of eyes must have gone home early because a woman dressed as a cleaner took me into a room and asked how many fingers she was holding up.

“Three,” I said.

“Close enough,” she said. “Please leave now so we can all go home and start drinking.”

 

No safe harbour for Gigaba

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Dear Comrade Malusi Gigaba, Honourable Upstanding Member, Minister of Affairs, Fighter of Tourism, Epitome of Sartorial Elegance.

Congratulations on your spectacular cinematic debut, even though it was very short. Needless to say, that’s the only thing about your appearance that was short. A week ago, critics were calling for your head and saying you should be bloody well hung. Then your video came out. That shut them up.

I had no intention of viewing your scandalous ménage à un, but a so-called friend mailed it, unbidden, to me. I am pleased to say that I never watched it. Not because I have Tanzanian tendencies when it comes to homoerotic flights of fancy, but because I find the male member an unsightly brute at the best of times. In my opinion, the best of times are when he is sound asleep, curled up like an infant pangolin. Besides which, should I ever desire to see a willy, I only need remove my trousers and look in a mirror. Or, if there is no mirror and the urge takes me, the glass frontage of, say, Mr Price at my local mall. For instance.

Unfortunately, my eyes did fall upon the frozen first image of the video. And even though I refrained from pressing play, it was enough. Having been led to believe that alcohol damages one’s short-term memory, I have been drinking heavily ever since. Not least to forget my inadequacies. My Sir Lancelot is a pale imitation. More pale than imitation, I am sorry to say. Do you have a name for that combat-ready heat-seeking missile? If not, might I suggest Mubi Dick?

Anyway. That is quite enough of that.

Of more pressing concern is your imminent political demise. By demise, I obviously mean promotion. It is a venerable ANC tradition to reward its most shameless and irredeemably exposed cadres with new career opportunities, usually in the diplomatic corps.

You appear to have upset some powerful people, my friend. I am obviously not referring to me or the other 57 million South Africans. We have no power. Well, we do, but we don’t really know what to do with it because we are saturated with either ignorance, apathy or alcohol. Oftentimes, all three. The unholy trinity.

No, I am talking about shadowy organisations like the Oppenheimer Cartel. These upper class thugs trade openly in diamonds while the rest of us go to jail if we so much as attempt to trade the last of our uncut emeralds for beer.

When you were in charge of public enterprises, you handed Eskom, Transnet and Denel to the Gupta Cartel. These Indians, they are not even dangerous men. My advice is that you do not mess with Don Nicky ‘Fireblade’ Oppenheimer. If he wants his own airport, give it to him. Give him whatever he wants. He is white and rich. History has shown that this an unbeatable combination.

Why on earth has Public Protector Busisiwe ‘Zuma Is Innocent’ Mkhwebane turned against you in the aviation matter? This is a woman who was trained to defend her comrades at all costs, and yet she has chosen to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds. Quite frankly, I don’t know if you are the fox or the hound. It’s a British expression. Nobody ever knows what they mean. It’s why we murdered them at Isandlwana.

Apparently a parliamentary portfolio committee has come up with a draft report saying you should be criminally investigated on suspicion of having been captured by the Guptas. This is outrageous. If the Guptas had indeed captured you, surely you would right now be tied up in a fur-lined dungeon in downtown Dubai while Atul the Dominator disciplined you with an ivory-handled camelhair whip. Instead, here you are, wandering about of your own free willy in the finest of suits, conducting government business, shaking hands, kissing babies, issuing denials and, in your evenings, remaking classics like Onan the Barbarian.

Somebody has poisoned our water supply with cynicism because nobody believes a word you say, but I drink beer, not water, so I believe you when you say there is an orchestrated campaign to ruin your career and prevent you from becoming president. To be hounded and condemned by much of the executive, a fair portion of the legislature, every level of the judiciary and virtually every man, woman and child in the country is the very definition of an orchestrated campaign.

I don’t know how they think they can get away with it.

Your response to this campaign of evil was sublime. “I am going to consult my lawyers in terms of how I am going to respond to this.” Even the most hardened of conspirators will tremble at the thought of your imminent consultations.

It is truly tragic when you consider that none of this would be happening if Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma hadn’t been pipped at the post by Squirrel Ramaphosa. The man is a menace. Where does he think he is? Sweden? This is Africa, for heaven’s sake. A continent where every silver lining has a cloud, every dog its day and every cart its rotten apples. In flagrant contravention of tradition, Squirrel is giving every indication of being one of those aberrant leaders who think that upsetting apple carts is a good idea.

Is it true that you are refusing to resign? Of course it is. I would expect nothing less. To the barricades! No Retreat, No Surrender is not just a movie. It is the story of your life. You are the black Jean-Claude Van Damme of our time. All you need is better lighting. And maybe a plausible script.

You said you are “surrounded by militant comrades” who will defend you. I do hope you are referring to more than just the avocado-shaped Andile Mngxitama and his drunk, shouty friends.

If not, you might want to consider a Plan B. You are, after all, the Minister of Home Affairs. You get to decide who is a South African and who isn’t. Who may stay and who should leave. Do you see what I am saying? All you need do is declare your enemies persona non grata. Get a courier to take a letter over to the Union Buildings first thing in the morning, letting the president know that his citizenship has been revoked. Include an air ticket to Cairo. Economy class, obviously. The man should suffer at least once in his life.

Should you consider my advice sound and good, I hereby register myself as an enemy forthwith and request immediate deportation to a country with warm weather, cheap beer, good surf and plenty of sloths.

Every night is fright night

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It is Halloween on Wednesday and I, for one, cannot wait to put on my succubus suit and go creeping around the neighbourhood late at night banging on doors, shouting: “Trick or treat!”

The real sport starts when the homeowner presses his panic button. You then have seven minutes to break into the house, tie the occupants up, find a treat and get out before an armed response unit can shoot you in the face. The kids love it.

For a lot of South Africans, every night is Halloween. The only difference is that these perennial pranksters can’t be bothered to dress up. To be fair, though, some do make the effort and put on a balaclava. Traditionally, a treat is a handful of sweets or, if you hit a vegan house, an eggplant without the egg. Our year-round rogues rarely settle for less than cellphones, money and guns. Or, at the very least, an HD-ready TV. Anyway. Who are we to judge? A treat is mos a treat.

I would advise against opting for the trick unless you want to watch someone juggling with your testicles or super-glueing your wife to the wall.

I have celebrated Halloween ever since I was dishonourably discharged from the army of Christ in the early ’80s. Standards were higher back then. These days they take anyone.

I would like to call myself a pagan, but I can’t. Worshipping nature is all very well if it knows its place. By this, I mean its place is not down my broeks stinging my bollocks to death. Nor does it have any business trying to crush me, drown me or bury me alive. It would be a far better idea if nature were to worship us. That way, the ants would stay out of the butter and sharks would be a little nicer to us. Is that too much to ask?

Besides, I have grown weary of flappy-lipped adherents of monotheistic religions using “pagan” in a pejorative sense while relying on me not to over-do the sacrificial lamb at our Saturday night synod. Adding insult to injury, they are the ones who invariably bogart the bong. Bloody heathens.

I generally refrain from defending my position for fear of inviting the fate met by Hypatia of Alexandria, a pagan philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who was killed by a Christian mob in 415 CE.

Unfortunately for the employed, Halloween is not a public holiday in South Africa. If only the Soweto Uprising had taken place on 31 October instead of 16 June. Youth Day would be so much more entertaining if it were combined with Halloween. The horror is already there. All we would need are police uniforms, nitrous oxide grenades, a few dozen crates of cherry-flavoured vodka and some live music. Also some live ammunition. And a smattering of German Shepherds all sniffed out and hoping to reach retirement age without any major drama.

At this time of year, carving vegetables into grotesque shapes is popular in some cultures. In my house, it’s called dinner. In Ireland and Scotland, they use scooped-out turnips. It’s that lack of imagination that allowed the English to oppress them for so long. In America, they use pumpkins. In Israel, they use Palestinians.

I don’t know what we can use here. If I tell people that instead of eating their madumbi this week, they should carve them so they look like little tokoloshes, they will think I work for the DA. And if I tell them to put a small candle inside the hollowed-out madumbi, they will think I work for the municipality. Either way, I’m screwed.

If only we could make some kind of genetically modified clone of Julius Malema’s head and carve that instead of wasting perfectly good vegetables. It’s the ideal shape and consistency. And scary as hell.

Halloween’s imagery is derived from horror movies and stories like Frankenstein and Dracula. Here, it can be derived from films and books like There’s A Zulu On My Stoep and Bitch, please! I’m Khanyi Mbau.

There are many overseas traditions that can be adapted to local conditions. Take apple bobbing, for instance. Instead of using your teeth to grab an apple from a bucket of water, you must use your political connections to win a tender wrapped in fly-paper and coated in honey. This creates a hilarious yet potentially sticky situation, especially if the Hawks find out about it.

The telling of horror stories is also a popular feature of Halloween. Gather the children around and, in the unlikely event that Eskom hasn’t already done it for you, switch off the lights. Tell them about The Picture of Dorian Gray or The Man Whose Mouth Tasted of Wormwood or The Second Coming of Jacob Zuma.

The important thing, comrades, is not to let your Halloween be co-opted by the Christians. We are more Nosferatu than we are Cosatu. No praying. No fasting. No skiving off to church.

Deconstruct all that Celtic reconstructionist propaganda and unleash your demons.

Crime me a river

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I went to a braai on Saturday night. It was either that or give heroin a try. The house was full of normal people with normal faces and normal jobs. I should have gone with the heroin.

Braais aren’t what they used to be. It could be a generational thing or maybe it is location-sensitive. It could also be organised religion up to its old killjoy ways. Put any six people around a braai these days and at least one of them will be offended if you happen to shout, “Jesus!” for any reason other than being spontaneously suffused with the glory of God. Even if your flaming sambuca has set your hair alight. It’s epiphany or nothing.

Braais used to be things you went to so you could relax. I have been to braais so relaxed that it would be way past midnight before anyone remembered to light the fire. Or buy the meat.

Many of our braais simply turned into fires, some of which burned out of control for days. Our braais were an opportunity for friends to let their hair down. Or dye it purple. Or shave it into a mohawk.

The women weren’t in the kitchen making salads. They were staggering about the garden shrieking like lunatics and chucking tequila down their throats. The children, bless their black little hearts, were kept busy rolling joints for the grown-ups. It all worked very well. Until someone with a heart murmur would arrive with a bottle of amyl nitrate.

This braai I went to was attended (in the old days it would have been invaded) by your common-or-garden SABS-approved types. Creative accountants, financial advisors who lie for a living, paunchy tax evaders laughing the loudest, property developers with blood on their teeth, doctors milking the medical aid system and sweaty divorce lawyers fresh from bayoneting the wounded.

Once the chops are down, the talk turns to crime. Or rugby. Same thing, really. As far as I’m concerned, rugby is a crime. “Ja ay, speaking of the Stormers getting robbed, I know this oke down the road that got hit by a bunch of them who cleaned his house out and then sommer ironed his face.” Disgruntled domestic workers, probably.

The stories get wilder. It turns into a game of oneupmanship. I take the gap. “That’s nothing,” I shout. “A dingo ate my baby!” It was the wrong moment to lose my balance and almost knock the braai over, but I think my point was made.

I bet when cops braai, they talk about the books they’ve read and argue about what Descartes really meant when he said, “Cogito, ergo sum.”

The fire appeared to be dying so I began throwing bits of scrunched-up newspaper onto the coals. Those who take their braais seriously put this kind of behaviour on a par with paedophilia. Rather than getting a braai fork through the throat, I wandered off and read the newspaper instead.

It was a community paper, a mine of useless information swaddled in lashings of sunshine journalism. Under the headline, “Safety in North Durban”, residents shared their views on the darkie problem. They don’t call it that, of course. They call it the crime problem. It’s a delightful euphemism that helps keep accusations of racism at bay.

Here’s a good one: “I feel unsafe knowing KwaMashu, the crime capital of South Africa, is on our doorstep.” I imagine her, sitting at her William IV mahogany writing table in her horrible house dress and sensible shoes, dashing off one outraged letter after another in the hope that someone will take notice and move KwaMashu a little further to the north.

Madam, I do not know what your name is, but I shall call you Maude. It rhymes with bored. Which, I assume, is what you have been ever since your husband left you for someone who didn’t hear intruders in the house seventeen times a night.

If you are looking for someone to blame, Maude, which I expect you are, then may I suggest you follow the lead of our former president and blame apartheid? Prior to 1958, a not-inconsiderable number of Africans lived in Cato Manor, a safe distance from suburbia.

When the arch-liberal Hendrik Verwoerd came to power, he heard about the plight of these people and created an entirely new town for them. He called it KwaMashu – Place of Indescribable Beauty.

In a speech he made at home on a Saturday afternoon before going across the road to watch an international rugby match between Transvaal and the Orange Free State, he said all Africans deserved their place in the sun. Now, thanks to fifty years of deforestation, they have it.

Hold on. Where is this information coming from? Wikipedia has a completely different version. They claim the township’s name means Place of Marshall, in honour of Sir Marshall Campbell. An English settler, he was partly responsible for covering most of Durban’s hills with sugar cane.

We also have him to thank for introducing rickshaws to Durban. Without having a black man to pull me around, I would never have gone anywhere as a child.

Sorry, Maude. Got a bit carried away there. That was a rickshaw joke, in case you didn’t get it. So. What are we going to do about your problem, then? Either we move KwaMashu or we move your doorstep. I imagine you aren’t keen to move, and rightly so. I have no doubt you were living in your house long before the Nguni-speaking upstarts swarmed into the area two thousand years ago.

I am offering to spend the next couple of days driving through KwaMashu with a loud-hailer fitted to my roof informing half a million people that Maude of Durban North has requested they disperse in an orderly fashion to a place that is nowhere near her home.

These people will listen to me, Maude. I am known in these parts as the Zulu whisperer. Zulus are shouters. When you whisper they become confused and follow you, if only to find out what the hell it is you’re saying.

If all goes well, Maude, you will be able to safely leave your house by the end of the year. Just imagine – Christmas lunch next to the pool instead of in the fortified panic room!

Someone else wrote, “I can’t even pop down to the shop to buy bread without worrying if we are going to be caught in a robbery. What is happening? It’s like the devil has discovered Durban all of a sudden.” Don’t be ridiculous. The devil discovered Durban a long time ago. Why do you think it’s so damnably hot? And have you seen the city centre lately? If that isn’t hell, I don’t know what is.

Someone else wrote: “They aren’t scared of dogs either!” What? This is terrifying news. “They” have always suffered from cynophobia. Dogs were our last line of defence. Now what do we do? I’ve got it. I bet They are still scared of water. Dig moats, people! Dig for your lives!

 

To the Matric Class of 2018

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Dear adultlings,

Congratulations on making it to the end of the beginning. Twelve years of being bullied, belittled and, in several thousand cases, banged up. A South African education prepares you for real life like no other.

I wish I could give you some advice on how to get through the exams without suffering a nervous breakdown. When I hear the word ‘exams’, my sphincter snaps shut and my knees sweat. And that’s not only because the last exam I took involved my prostate.

I regard the brutally interrogative nature of exams with fear and loathing. Sit down and shut up. Don’t move. Don’t look around. Answer these questions. Now. Think very carefully before you answer. Tell us how much you know. Tell us everything. And be warned. If your answers are wrong, we will make sure you never go to university. You will never find a job. We will destroy you.

If it were up to me, kiddo, you wouldn’t be asked to simplify tan(90° + x) .sin(-x-180°). In fact, I can’t believe they are still teaching this filth in our schools. If you are 18 and interested in relationships between fixed points and angles, you’re in a whole lot of trouble and I can’t help you. Trigonometry is the work of the devil. Sure, it can tell you the distance to a nearby star. But why do you need to know this? Are you planning on going there? Don’t you think your mother would start worrying when she last heard from you five light years ago?

The only numbers you need to know are the cellphone numbers of people who work for the government. Call them up and ask them to organise a job for you. Bribe, blackmail or threaten them. The main thing is to get your bum in the butter.

If you don’t manage to crack the Grade 12 pass mark of 30 percent, don’t despair. President Zuma has a Grade Four education and look how well he did. Of course, you are going to have to find a way of getting other people to subsidise your lifestyle. You probably have the gift of the gab, right? After all, you must have spent the last decade talking in class instead of paying attention. Start a political party. Tell people they will rot in hell if they don’t give you money. And smile a lot. If you can dance, so much the better. Make sure they watch your feet, not your hands.

The rest of you will soon have a senior certificate in your grubby little paws. This is an important piece of paper and will come in useful when you’re jobless and homeless and need something to burn to keep warm at night.

As a new cog in a very old machine, you may feel a little lost in this big, grown-up world. Don’t worry. It won’t last for long. Soon you will have lots of new friends phoning you at all hours of the day and night. Many of them will work for SARS, the municipality, traffic department, insurance companies, estate agencies and banks. Not all of them will want your money. Some will want your vote. Others will want your soul. Try to fight off the politicians and proselytizers for as long as you can.

Also, get yourself a gun. Especially if you live in KZN. If you find yourself being chased down the N2 by the police or hemmed in by a car full of blue-light bodyguards, the decent and patriotic thing to do is shoot yourself. This spares them the trouble of having to do it and they can get back to doing the important work we pay them to do.

Good luck, then. I do hope you aren’t the ones to nudge my country over the edge and into the abyss.

 

Application for the position of IT Chief Officer: SA Revenue Service

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Dear Sir/Madam,

I greet you as Sir/Madam because I do no know if you are a Sir or a Madam or even a Sir as well as a Madam, like Caitlyn Jenner. I am simply covering all bases, as you would expect from your future head of Information Technology.

To be honest, working for SARS was never really part of my life plan. Not that I have one. But if I did, I doubt it would involve working for the taxman. Not that I have anything in principle against taking from the poor and giving to the rich. It’s just that I am not very good at numbers.

I only decided to come and work for you after watching an interview with your current boss of IT, Mmamathe Makhekhe-Mokhuane. It was patently clear that MMM or, to simplify it, M³, is one of those rare people who pretend to know less than they actually do. Whether it’s a self-defence mechanism or a tactic to lull the enemy (journalists, commissions of inquiry etc) into a false sense of security, she has absolutely mastered it.

After watching M³ being interviewed on SABC, I am certain that I know more about IT than she does. For instance, I know how to copy and paste, use a cellphone and replace the paper in a Xerox machine. Can she do that? Exactly. What really attracted me to the position, though, was the news that M³ earned just under R3-million for a month short of a year’s work. I use the word ‘work’ loosely.

I am sure you are reluctant to get rid of one of SARS’ most promising employees. Quite frankly, I don’t know what she has been promising but I can promise you that my promises will be bigger and better. For instance, M³ attended four out of fourteen management meetings in the last few months. I promise to attend none.

Like her, I also know how to handle tough questions, whether they be from reporters or the head of a commission of inquiry. For example, when the Nugent Commission asked what she meant when referring to people who had been at SARS for years, she replied: “The Drakensberg Boys Choir was established in 1967. If you are a girl, the establishment doesn’t allow you to go there. It is 2018 but the Drakensberg remains a boys choir … and they sing quite well.”

This is a very good answer, but I could have done better. If I was in her position and someone asked me about, say, the state of IT infrastructure at SARS, I would have said, “In order to find out if a female giraffe is ready to mate, a male will use his head and rub her backside until she pees. He then drinks the urine to find out if she’s in heat.” Take that, Judge Nugent! Game over.

Is it true that your organisation’s IT infrastructure has been neglected for four-and-a-half years? That’s nothing. My ex-wife ignored my unwieldy priapism for a full seven years. I am very familiar with neglect and with that salary I am prepared to ignore pretty much everything.

M³ also told the commission that the revenue service would need R2-billion “to keep the lights on” in her division. This is a dangerously conservative estimate. When I get the job, I will need at least R3-billion for experts to come up with a comprehensive schematic diagram identifying the location of what I imagine are countless light switches. Then another R1-billion for light bulbs and R4-billion for sundries.

M³ said her division had identified depreciated assets that were “running through God’s grace”. Once I am in charge, I will fix everything right away so that God can get back to doing the stuff he really enjoys, like helping Israel bomb Gaza and spreading cancer among children.

During my term of employment, I will obviously require protection from yourself. This means you may not ever fire me. Or even talk to me.

Yours in IT,

Comrade Benjamin “Komputah” Trovato

 

Scam the Scammers

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From: Hyundai Cars Company <info@hyundai.net>

To: bentrovato@mweb.com

Subject: You have won the Hyundai Company Award Funds

This is to inform you that you have been awarded 850,000.00 Pounds from Hyundai Cars Company. This Promotion Award is to raise the profile of Hyundai Cars across the world. (contact project manager) Name: Mr Jfferson Andrews. Phone # : +44703193 5671.

Send your name, country, city, age, occupation, pssition, home phone, moblie, email address to Mr. Jfferson Andrews for the processing of your award funds.

Congratulations!

 

From: Ben Trovato

Dear Jfferson,

What an interesting name. Is it Welsh? Never mind. I cannot believe that I have won so much money! How did you know that I drive a Hyundai? Is my name on a global register of Hyundai owners? My Elantra and I have been together for 10 years and we are still deeply in love. I have converted the spacious boot into a mobile office and entertainment centre which makes me the envy of all my friends except for those who laugh at me for driving a Hyundai. They say the only thing Koreans know how to make is stir-fried sausage dog but they are jealous.

I hope I do not have to go to Korea to get my money. Flying terrifies me. So do the Koreans. I would prefer it if you put the cash directly into my account.

Once again, thank you for this fantastic award. I promise that I will drive my Hyundai until I die, which could be quite soon unless I get the brakes fixed. Please hurry with the money.

PS. What is a moblie?

 

From: Hyundai Cars Company

Dear Award Winner

We have received your informations and you have been cleard for payment. We have sent your informations to our affliate bank for the transfer of your funds which is £850.000.00 GBP.

You are now required to contact our bank whom are responsible for the transfer of your promo funds to your bank account. The Hyundai Cars Company do believe that your funds will be put into good use for community development. This award is also sponsor by the Bill Gate Foundation.

Processing Director Hyundai Company Promotion.

Mr. Jefferson Andrews

 

From: Ben Trovato

Mr Andrews,

I am thrilled to hear from you again because I was beginning to think this was some kind of cruel trick. Are you sure this award is genuine? I do not wish to look foolish. Especially not in the eyes of Bill Gate.

You say I must use my money for community development? This worries me. It would take more than 850 000 pounds to develop my community and quite frankly I need the money more than my white trash neighbours. What do you mean by this?

 

From: Hyundai Cars Company

Dear Award Winner

What we mean in the word for community development it means that you should help the homeless and the less privilege in your locality as well as yourself. You have won the funds and it is yours to do what ever you like with the money but also please help the needy with the funds.

Mr. Jefferson Andrews

 

From: Ben Trovato

Listen here, Andrews.

I do not wish to help the homeless and the needy. They are terrible people. It is I, not them, who suffers the indignity of driving a 1998 Hyundai. Would it be acceptable if I used some of my money to pay a homeless man to kill my wife? I promise I will buy a new Hyundai with whatever is left over.

 

From: Hyundai Cars Company

We have accepted you use the award funds for your personal issues. You can now go ahead and contact the bank.

Congratulations once again!

Mr. Jefferson Andrews

 

From: Ben Trovato

Andrews,

I had an epiphany in my bed last night. When I told my wife, she said there was no way in hell she was going to clean it up. I told her that god came to me in a dream (he was Nigerian, oddly enough) and he told me to get rid of the Hyundai. He said it was the Devil’s car, so this morning I am going to set it alight and push it over a cliff. Does this mean I no longer qualify for the award?

PS.  I also told her that the Hyundai Corporation had given me permission to have her murdered. Please send me 800 000 dollars so I can pay the homeless assassin.

Pay Me, Pal

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Did I mention that nearly a million people from 186 countries have read my columns in the last six or seven years?

Many of them have been begging for an opportunity to contribute to my fun-raising campaign, which previously they couldn’t do because PayFast won’t let them. “Give us PayPal!” they cried.

Being a firm believer in giving the people want they want, I have now made it possible for the international community to join the countless  South Africans who have subscribed or donated to the cause. I say countless because it would be too depressing to count them.

So if you are earning pounds, dollars or euros and wish to join an elite group of people who appreciate that laughs don’t always come cheap, there is a PayPal button especially for you.

Gracias. Obrigado. Merci. Terima kasih. Shukran. Do jeh. Dankie (for the South Africans living abroad)

 

The subscriber you have dialled has detonated

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I got a message from MTN today letting me know that I was due for a phone upgrade. My eyes filled with tears. It has taken me two years to work out a fraction of my current phone’s functions. Why why would I want to get another, infinitely more complex phone? Because it’s free? It’s not really.

It will lock me into another vicious cycle of shameless information superhighway robbery and exact a terrible physical and mental toll as I discover that I’ve thrown away the manual with the wrapping and will have to spend another two years cursing and weeping and stabbing at stupid little buttons and swiping a poorly lit screen.

I can take the upgrade or cancel my contract. Or I can kill myself. If I choose option three, then I might as well do it properly by strapping a kilogram of Semtex to my chest and running into my local MTN branch shouting incomprehensible slogans in the hope that one or other of the gods will send me to a place where there are no cellphones, no taxis and nobody in a yellow bib telling me where to park.

But a security guard would stop me before I could detonate. He would tell me to take a seat, not that there are any, and wait for the next available consultant. He would point out that there is a queue of people waiting to blow themselves up and that I should just be patient.

The staff at my local branch appear to be borderline retarded. I may be doing the mentally afflicted an enormous disservice, here. For that, I apologise. But I am not exaggerating when I say that their preferred method of communication is a form of grunting last heard in the Paleolithic era.

Cellphone shop staff are second only to the police when it comes to not giving a blind rat’s arse about someone who needs help or advice. The police at least make an effort to appear interested, even if they do lapse into a vegetative state halfway through taking your statement. Most of the time they can be revived with a chicken pie.

I am on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and something called Google+ mostly by accident and almost entirely against my better judgment. I am a huge fan of social media simply because it is so utterly anti-social. Let us all interact through our portable devices instead of our physical bodies. It’s far safer and infinitely less messy. No more gaping head wounds, no more unwanted pregnancies.

What a time to be alive. Or dead.