Of the seven deadly sins, sloth is the smelliest
‘This would mean putting on a T-shirt, in case the sex maniac who lives next door was lurking about’
IRECENTLY found myself on the N12 en route to Naturena to visit a buddy I hadn’t seen in a while. It was probably going on for 6pm. At that point I realised that I was still unbathed since the morning.
I knew this because I had to open the window to let in some fresh air.
I wish I could say this situation was an aberration. Tragically, it’s not. Most weekends I fail to honour my daily appointment with the shower. And then I walk around smelling of unbathed shebeen whores all day.
So why do I engage in this behaviour? Until I sat down to write this I didn’t know. But it’s as clear as a Zimbabwean food shelf to me now. I am pathologically lazy at a genetic level. It probably has something to do with the fact that my lineage can be traced to the royalty of the AmaQadi people. (Really. I’m not making it up.)
Take yesterday, for instance. At some point around noon, I thought “Let me take a shower.” And then I remembered seeing my washing rags airing outside. Hmm, conundrum. This would mean getting off the couch and putting on a T-shirt before I went outside, just in case the sex maniac who lives next door was lurking about. I’m a deeply attractive specimen of Zulu manhood, you see. And it would disturb the peace in the neighbourhood if she gave birth to a coloured baby in nine months.
Now, while putting on a T-shirt was not an insurmountable obstacle in itself, there was another hurdle to overcome. To fetch my rags, I’d have to put on my slippers . . . and those were in the bedroom. By the time I got to thinking about walking all the way to the bedroom to fetch my slippers so I could walk outside to fetch my rags so I could walk to the bathroom, I was already discouraged.
And then I started thinking about some of the other aspects of the cleansing process. When I had taken a shower the previous day, there had only been a tiny sliver of Dove on the soap thingamadish. (Don’t judge my choice of soap — I believe in proper moisturisation).
I don’t do slivers of soap. I like to generate a healthy lather during a shower. And there’s nothing worse than too little foam during a shower. A foamless shower is an anticlimax. It’s like huffing and puffing for a long three minutes and not reaching an orgasm. (Don’t judge me on my staying power — we can’t all be Zumas, you know.)
But a new bar of Dove meant the long walk to the kitchen. And then having to spend another three minutes opening and closing cabinets looking for the toiletry stash. Murphy’s Law dictates that the soap will always be in the last cabinet I check — and our kitchen has about 37 cabinets.
Besides, Mrs N changes the contents of the cupboards every 90 minutes. Many times I have gone to the kitchen to fetch some ground pepper before emerging 10 minutes later, defeated and having decided I actually wanted garlic salt instead after all.
As you might imagine, I was downright dejected by the time I was done contemplating the Dove situation. Just too many hurdles in the way of that “just showered” feeling. It is at this point that I realised that the washing machine was humming.
And that’s another problem. I am incredibly fussy about the temperature of my showers — 63.3°C is the perfect, optimal temperature. Water at 63.2°C is way too cold and leads to shrinkage and we don’t want that; while 63.4°C leaves yards of my scalded skin on the floor.
The delicate balancing act of getting my levels of hot and cold water just right is an arduous task that may take up to three minutes. The last thing I need is to get the water temperature just right and then, while I’m enjoying my shower, the washing machine finishes the spin cycle and starts rinsing, reducing the cold water pressure and then — the horror! Let’s all agree: only savages can shower at 64°C.
If you’re thinking, “Why not get a plumber?”, hit your forehead with the base of your palm. Duh. Calling a plumber involves finding the Yellow Pages, which is on the highest shelf in the kitchen, which means finding a step ladder . . . I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
My mental exertions left me rather drained, and quite parched. All of a sudden I felt like a double vodka, lime and soda. So I left the TV room, went to the liquor cabinet (they never move the contents of this one, go figure).
And then I realised that I only had about half a teaspoon of lime cordial left. That would mean having to walk to the waste bin to discard the empty bottle before opening another one . . .
So I grabbed a beer from the fridge and wandered back to the TV room to read the newspaper and judge our government harshly for its failures in service delivery due to disgustingly lazy civil servants.
Somehow, when I try to visualise what our honourable minister of everybody-except-humans-with-willies does on a daily basis, I can’t help but wonder if she comes from the royal house of AmaQadi.