Guilt: the MSG-free flavour enhancer
MY favourite quote from the 1991 film Other People’s Money, starring Danny DeVito and Gregory Peck, is delivered by “Larry the Liquidator” (played by DeVito): “There’s only one thing I love more than money . . . other people’s money!” This expresses a far more universal phenomenon than most folk are willing to acknowledge — not in polite company, anyway.
I am talking about the allure of forbidden fruit. Unlike Dr Pallo, I’m quite willing to admit that I lack the qualifications to speak authoritatively on DNA sequencing. However, I’m confident that human DNA contains a gene that makes us derive immense pleasure when we do what we shouldn’t be doing or take that which we shouldn’t take. People on a strict diet know what I’m talking about. Nothing tastes better than a Magnum Almond ice cream 20 days into a 30-day eating plan. And then the phrase “sinfully delicious” is aptly bandied about.
When I was in high school, we used to dismantle the fence separating the boys’ hostel from Brother Clement’s orchard to help ourselves to his peaches, apricots, grapes and oranges.
The oranges, in particular, were sweet and delicious. So we drew up a daily orchard raiding roster and during the evening study period we would hang our loot outside the corner window and slurp away at the sweet nectar.
Our paradise was abruptly lost when, during his turn to get us oranges, one of my classmates — named Innocent, ironically — was caught orange-handed (as it were) by Brother Clement after a highspeed chase through the orchard. We expected all hell to break loose and a witch-hunt of Rivonia Trial proportions to ensue. We underestimated Brother Clement’s cunning and appreciation of psychology.
He merely asked Innocent: “If you wanted oranges, why didn’t you ask for them?”
He proceeded to have oranges delivered to the dining hall for meal times. Overnight, the oranges stopped being sweet. There was general consensus that these were the sourest oranges in the history of citrus farming.
If you don’t believe me, then you must believe the Bible. Right? According to the Book of Samuel, King David was taking a stroll on his roof, as one does, when he spotted Bathsheba, the breathtakingly stunning wife of Uriah the Hittite, taking a bath down below. (I’ve often wondered whether she was just Sheba before and got the Bath prefix after this incident.)
Did David suffer erectile dysfunction as soon as Bathsheba was single?
One of King David’s advisers must have been from Nkandla because he already had a few wives. But at that moment the allure of forbidden fruit gripped his human heart and he sent for her so that he could savour the sweet nectar. (I don’t think he appreciated the irony of knowing someone, in the biblical sense, within the pages of the Bible).
Long story short: Uriah the Hittite ended up perishing in a pool of his own blood when he charged at the enemy. His co-combatants had left a wide space around him to make it easy for the enemy to butcher him.
But do you know what I often wonder? Remember how the sweet oranges from Brother’s Clement turned immediately sour as soon as we had permission to eat them? I wonder if, the very night the Hittite was gone, King David didn’t suffer an acute case of erectile dysfunction. I bet he had to insist on roleplay involving Bathsheba whispering in a conspiratorial tone, “You must leave. My husband will be home any minute.”
The forbidden-fruit syndrome is not just about taking things that do not belong to us, though. Sometimes it’s just about deriving pleasure from things we know we shouldn’t be enjoying.
A friend, Siyabonga, sent me a link about a trophy hunter from abroad who shot and wounded a leopard on a game farm a few years ago. This Einstein continued stalking it deep into the bush to corner it, with the help of his guides. The leopard decided that enough was enough and turned on the hunter, only for one of the guides to jump in front of him to protect him. The beast damn near shredded him to pieces.
I know I shouldn’t derive pleasure from other people’s misfortune. But this story warms my heart. It makes me go all giddy with joy. I have even contemplated printing it, laminating it and affixing it next to my collection of pictures of matadors yelling in pain, with bulls’ horns up their poop-holes. And then I hang my head in shame for my schadenfreudian ways.
Some misplaced pleasures are pretty harmless though. When we’re having chicken, I collect everybody’s bones and gnaw on the cartilage. Mrs N says it makes her tummy turn. In my defence: my neighbour’s 60-something wife Marietjie regularly sunbathes in shorts in her garden with Huisgenoot in hand. I have never felt the urge to Bathsheba her. LS ngcobon@sundaytimes.co.za @NdumisoNgcobo