OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOUR

Only a South African taxi can transport seventeen adults,six children and a fully grown goat to the Transkei - as one attempted to do before it was impounded in Cape Town for overloading, after traffic police noticed that the door was not closed properly because the goat’s head was poking out.

From Sarah Britten’s hilarious book, The Art of the South African Insult.

Well. I returned from Annestown at about 8pm yesterday and was amazed to find a Kavanagh’s bus blocking my path. Firmly wedged between the church wall and the recycling bins.

My first thought was that civil war had broken out while I was lounging about at the beach. A blockade. Fenor bog (which you can’t see because it’s on the other side of the bus)had been seized by rebels. I fully expected to find a group of eco warriors barricaded behind the bus. Instead I saw only a rather disconsolate bus driver wandering around the vehicle peering at the wheels. Have you noticed that’s what men do when they’ve had an accident? It doesn’t matter that the engine is sitting on the backseat, or the boot has been rammed onto the steering wheel. They still wander around, fiddling with their knickers, looking at the wheels.  Does anybody have a theory on this?

There certainly had been an occupation of sorts but only of the pub where a group of Yanks and Aussies awaited the arrival of another bus to take them to wherever they were going. In the meantime a bloke with a 4 times 4 came and towed away the clothing recycling bin (that’s the blue one stuck on the bus’ front bumper) after which the driver managed to extricate himself.

There are a number of theories about how he managed to park it there in the first place. As for me, I think it was a stroke of pure driving genius. I mean, you couldn’t do it if you tried, could you?

I had no sooner pulled up outside my soon to be new home this afternoon before some wanker, reeking of booze,(this was about 4.30pm, I might add)sidled up to me and asked me would I mind if he left his shopping in my place and he’d collect it whenever he left the pub. Yes, really, I am not kidding. I have a large bruise on my jaw where it hit the ground.

Me? Mind? Noooooooooooooo, of course not and would you like me to have a little snack and a cup of tea waiting when you haul your drunken arse out of the Bog pub at one o’clock in the morning? Why, in the name of God, would I mind having my house used as a left luggage depot, my sleep disturbed and my privacy invaded?

Better still why don’t you tell all your friends to bring their shopping too and I can open a supermarket?

Fuck’s sake.

Sometimes I swear I am living in a parallel reality.