Last words from Karin Brynard
People and contraptions can be highly entertaining, muses Karin Brynard.
II was sitting at a street café, slowly sipping an expensive Stellenbosch cappuccino, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man struggling to buckle a baby into a car seat. I wanted to chuckle – the mere fact that it was a man, you know... But then I noticed he was elderly. He was probably the grandfather and you could see the whole rigmarole with safety and baby transport was out of his usual league. And, of course, the baby wasn’t sitting still either, so oupa was soon working up a healthy sweat.
Apart from the wriggling child, he kept having to put on his reading glasses – suspended on a thin cord around his neck – every few seconds to try to figure out the machinations of the baby seat buckles. The little one kept groping for the specs floating in front of his face and the man had his hands full between protecting his glasses and preventing the baby from flopping out of his seat and the car onto the pavement.
A car guard stood leaning against a wall, observing. You could see him calculating his timing to intervene and perhaps earn himself a rand or two.
But someone beat him to it and he slunk back against the wall again; he kept watching, though, you never know.
The Good Samaritan was a strapping young man, the kind who relishes rescuing kittens from trees.
The oom straightened stiffly. He’d been bending at an angle in the open rear door of the car for at least 10 minutes. His face was crimson. And dripping with sweat. The pain was visible as he straightened his back.
The eager beaver stepped up to the open car door and the baby seat inside. I couldn’t quite see what he was doing, but he was obviously not cracking it. Some seats, I recalled, have two sets of straps with buckles that have to be tethered – one set for over the shoulders and down across the stomach, another that anchors the bum. Some buckles slide in like ordinary seatbelts, while others either snap, click or clamp in. And unless you know exactly what you’re doing, those buckles will snooker you till the cows come home. The student tried bravely for a while. Every now and then, he would lift one of the baby’s arms and try to fit it through some loop in the strapping affair. Then it was a foot or a knee. Finally, he lifted the baby right up and tried to ‘insert’ him into the intricate system of buckles and belts from above. All in vain. That’s when the baby started crying. He’d obviously had enough of these sweaty men discombobulating his limbs. The crying upset Oupa, who took over again, and the young hero stood back, crestfallen. From inside the car, the howling cranked up a notch. Oupa was now trying to lift the entire back seat, baby chair and all, out of the car because it seemed the baby was now properly stuck. The student rushed around and leaned in from the other side. Now there were four clumsy male hands frantically fumbling around and the baby wasn’t having any of it. He screamed blue murder. The car guard sidled closer. I fervently prayed he would refrain from becoming helpful, because Oupa was clearly in no mood for advice. Just then he succeeded in freeing the baby, lifted him out of the car and unceremoniously plonked him in the hands of the car guard. He dove right back into the car, meaning business with that infernal car seat. The baby was hanging from the guard’s hands like a wet cat. For a moment he stopped screaming, blinking at the guard in surprise. He was about to start anew when a young mom with a pram strolled past. Seeing the commotion, she took the baby off the car guard’s hands and tapped the oupa on the shoulder. The second he straightened up, she bent over, slipped the baby smoothly into the car seat, and fastened the straps – quick as a wink. Smiling sweetly, off she went, three men gazing after her in bafflement. Meanwhile, my expensive cappuccino had gone cold. I recklessly ordered another, plus a slice of cake. It was still way cheaper than a movie ticket, I decided, already spotting new entertainment potential: a foreign tourist, his rented bike and a stubborn chain lock...