You want to do someone a favour? Don't do it - just don't do it!
My New Year's resolution - fuck em all!
We have a house full of guests ranging from the great-granny to the great-grannychildren and obviously there's a teenager in the mix somewhere - of course there is!
This one, Pearl (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1174333234) dresses up like Paris Hilton to go bush walking and will not go to the toilet without putting on make-up. She's developed thumbs like irradiated gherkins from MXIT intercourse (that means conversation, Pearl) and after two days away from civilisation (read: staying in Magaliesburg) she gets Mall withdrawal, a malady that can be likened to heroin cold-turkey where the addict becomes irrational, sweats uncontrollably, resorts to verbal abuse and profanity in desperate attempts to have the drug of choice served up.
Well, being the soft-hearted pussycat that I am, I succumbed to the wiles of the pretty Pearl as she fluttered her eyelids and abused her mother just one time too many.
"Okay, Godammit!" I was heard to croon lovingly, "I'll take you to the fucking mall, you little ingrate!"
Honestly, it didn't sound as bad as it looks in print...
So, after an hour and a half of tonsorial teasing, cosmetic pastiche and the fumigation by teen-fragrance of every square millimetre of her waiflike body, we were all ready to venture forth from the harsh wilderness of Magaliesburg to the Jerry Springer breeding ground of Krugersdorp and more specifically the Key West Mall.
Now the fact that the inhabitants of this mall only learned to walk upright that very morning and have as much in common with Pearl as a juvenile Cambodian refugee has with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, the place boasted the epithet: MALL and that was enough for our MXIT minx. It may have been a really poor grade of mall but she was strapping up the arm, puffing out the veins and ready for an almost lethal injection of Key West.
So I dropped her and her mom at Entrance 4 - oh yeah I forgot to mention the other significant trait of our city-slicking teenager: anything that walks the earth that isn't on a leash, wearing a bell or served up with fries and ketchup is deemed to be a threat to humanity (and especially to Pearl) even more so than Global Warming (if you buy into that pish)
Yes, despite the voluminous research conducted by arachnologists, herpetologists, entomologists and zoologists per-se recording the retiring nature of almost all arachnids, reptiles, insects and small mammals, Pearl would have us believe that there are new, malicious toad species endemic to the Magalies region (localised in the family room of our home, in fact) that have one singular desire: to abduct her and subject her to the most unspeakable cruelty involving just actually being there and looking um well like totally gross. The accompanying screams at the sight of a little toad on an evening feeding foray or an errant moth that may flutter within 2 metres of the teenager are enough to curdle milk at five hundred paces. So the thought of this little wuss being left alone in a strange mall in the middle of the "wild West" was but an episode of madness. Of course mom would have to go with...
Having safely desposited my charges at the mall, I proceeded to fulfill the real mission quest: to purchase (from the only open Midas Spares store that had stock) a pair of hydraulic arms for the rear door of my bakkie. Why not - we'd just paid the thing off and Doris (my bakkie) deserved to be rendered pristine. Yeah right - read on.
It was all proceeding famously - I was popular with the teenage contingent of the menagerie, I had found a supplier open in the holidays and I got to take a break from the festive (but chaotic) home environment for a short while.
Then without warning as is the nature of a wife remembering shit she forgot to tell her husband prior to leaving home, my cellphone rang just as I was approaching the side junction at which I was to turn.
I looked down to the mobile (my hands-free was in the other car and needed recharging). I picked it up. I looked up. The road was clear (wasn't it?). I had already crossed the median line but then - oh my God - a Ford Sierra appeared from nowhere and was skidding toward me. I could do nothing but a bunny in the headlight impression - which I did pretty well as the oncoming car slewed and squealed toward me then collided with the front right hand corner of the bakkie with the usual horrible crunch that goes with arse-snatching and the helplessness of these moments.
I casually told my wife that I had just had an accident and would call her back then vacated the vehicle to see if the occupants of the other car were okay.
They were, the driver volubly so, indignant and threatening at first but as soon as I admitted fault, he seemed to deflate like an erection when your mum catches you having a wank.
His car: to put it technically - fucked and undrivable. Mine: I managed to drive it to the parking bays outside the Midas store where I scrutinised the damage. The right front wheel assembly was pushed back and damaged to a degree where the car could only be driven in a straight line, anything involving turning graunched the tyre against the inside of the wheel arch. Undrivable.
The usual formalities were concluded and when attempting to console the wife of the elderly driver, herself a frail-looking Afrikaans tannie resplendent in crimplene and nylon and seated on the grass verge, I was told in no uncertain terms that this horrible deed was all Satan's doing.
I was immediately in two minds at that vehement pronouncement wondering if a) I should recant my previous admission of culpability and suggest we both claim against the Prince of Darkness' insurers - Hellfire Provident or somesuch firm or b) tell her she was still in shock and the real culprit was Pearl who had guilted me into taking her to the mall to silence the falsetto mall withdrawal whingeing...the consequence of which had brought me to this very intersection at this very time. If I'd been going directly to Midas, I reasoned, I wouldn't have been at this intersection at this time and the accident would have been avoided. Damn that Black Pearl! (Sounds like a line from Pirates of the Caribbean)
Upon further reflection and registering the obviously fragile demeanour of the traumatised tannie, I opted to maintain my guilt and assured her that if Satan had been involved we'd probably all be dead and holding hands in a barque as we were escorted across the Styx. This seemed to totally fly over her blue-rinsed and curled head so I let it be.
If she wanted the devil to be the bad guy - then hey - who was I to stand in the way of that?
Even when someone puts up their hand and shoulders the responsibility for something - the Godfearing folk of our fair world brush this aside in favour of the unseen. Mystery seems so much more appealing than some red-headed git in glassed claiming to be the culprit. Fuck that!
Tis true - the devil must work in mysterious ways - ask Pearl - for according to her, he has trained demonic amphibians to torment her in the hellfire of Magaliesburg for what must seem like an absolute eternity - well the Christmas hols to be exact..
But it's hard not to believe in the existence of the Prince of the Pit especially when one looks at the current level of teenage communication that abdicates any actual verbal discourse, or we take stock of the current generation's value system based on McDonald's, branded clothing and cloned pop stars.
There was a fleeting moment when Pearl spoke with me about matters of spirit but then as soon as the Mall juice hit her veins, the headphones hit her ears, both thumbs assumed their MXIT position on either side of her cellphone and I realised that this was the portrait of the new world.
Better the devil you know...
