HUMOUR
Ndumiso Ngcobo needs a hand
As we’re leaving for the airport to attend my firstborn’s graduation at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, I notice that other than his bag of clothes, all he has on him is his phone and wallet. I’m thinking, “This fellow is travelling all the way to Durban and all he’s got on him is a wallet and a phone?” And then I remember that when I was his age, I was exactly the same. Well, not exactly the same. We didn’t have mobile phones back then. So all I’d have on me when I went to town would be my wafer-thin Bobsave fabric wallet with a Velcro flap. If I really felt like travelling light, I’d simply shove my ATM card, Telkom payphone card and a few notes in my front pocket.
Over the years, the number of items I need to have on my person has gradually increased.
About 15 years ago I caught sight of my reflection as I left the house. What I saw was a giant specimen of Amoeba proteus — a disfigured blob, bulges protruding. In my right front pocket was my now significantly fatter wallet. In my left front pocket was my bulgy Nokia 5110 brick. In my left back pocket was a bunch of house keys, complex gate remote and house remote with accompanying key holder. In my right back pocket, my car key, car alarm remote gear lock key with accompanying key holder.
In my shirt pocket I had stuffed my work access control card, locker key with, you guessed it, its key holder.
What I needed, I realised, was a utility belt the likes of which I’ve seen on prison warders in movies such as Escape from Alcatraz.
But the prison warder look is not a very attractive one, especially for a man entering the official sowing-ofseeds era in his life. This is why, about 10 years ago, I decided to go the murse route. That’s “man + purse” for the uninitiated. Problem solved, right?
You would be wrong. Lately I have realised that not everything I require before I leave fits into my murse. Secondly, not unlike Paul the Octopus, I require eight arms to carry it all. What that means is that I usually require at least three trips to and from the car before I leave for the day.
A few weeks ago I realised something had to give. With my hands full, and trying to circumvent a fourth trip back into the house, I ended up shoving a banana in my front pocket. Hey, a man needs a potassium-rich snack at some point in the day.
As fate would have it, I totally forgot about it until it ripened a few hours later. But what really annoyed me is that I’ve always wanted someone to say to me, “Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”, to which I’d respond by whipping out an actual banana.
No one did. But I digress.
I recently performed a mental inventory of the items I take with me every time I leave the house, that I cannot fit into my murse. The most obvious one is my laptop. I’m a writer. You never know when your own version of War and Peace will reveal itself. At least 1.5 litres of drinking water for hydration in this harsh climate. But I cannot stand drinking tepid water, so I end up putting it in my small cooler box. This means I have to grab ice packs. And then the cooler looks bare. So I put some juice in there. I always prepare a snack for myself. And then, just as I’m about to leave I think, what if it gets a bit nippy later. Even if it’s the middle of January,
I turn around and grab a fleece jacket. This is when I think that I might need a cap later. But what if I decide to take it off and my hair is all dishevelled, so I grab a hairbrush. I’m an extremely vain man.
Everything I’ve counted is outside of the murse. So what do I carry in there? Hand sanitiser. Roll-on deodorant in case I’m not feeling confident. My pills. Don’t ask — that’s rude. Kleenex. Mints. Gum. In case I’m not confident about my breath. External phone charger. My other pills. Gaviscon — acid reflux is real at my age. Insect repellant. Sunblock lotion — yeah, black folks need it too. Pens — blue and black ink. A novel, just in case I’m stuck in stationary traffic for two hours. Did I mention my pills?
I have a theory about why, as we get older, we pack like we’re leaving forever. It’s because we’re closer to the grave. This is why I also carry Vaseline in my murse — I wouldn’t want to meet my Maker with chapped lips.
Lately I have realised that not everything I require before I leave the house fits into my murse (that’s man + purse)