Let’s grow up and adult together before we’re old

According to PanSALB (the Pan South African Language Board), SA’s term of the year is “Zondo commission”. What’s that I hear? A collective yawn from Kakamas to Musina? I thought so too. Look, I think deputy chief Justice Raymond Zondo is an upstanding fellow with more integrity and class than the entire cabinet, ANC NEC, DA federal council, Old

Mutual and Steinhoff boards and their grandparents combined. Besides, he has a baritone that puts Barry White and Mike from Boyz II Men to shame. If I saw him approaching in the basement parking of Menlyn Park shopping mall, I’d whisk the missus away to avoid out-of-season ovulation.

But come on! As a country, we have so many more colourful words, terms and phrases. For instance, “Hibiri”, the refrain from kwaito artist Mgarimbe’s timeless song Sister Bettina should have made it years ago. “Tlof tlof”, the nom de plum for the sex act, should already be in the dictionary.

Even though it’s global, the verb “adulting” should be included — the collective acts that most people above the age of 18 engage in purely because it’s expected of “an adult”. Do you remember that time before you were an adult when you could open an Edgars account and when they called you to pay up, you giggled over the phone, passed the phone on to Bhoklolo, the neighbourhood drunkard? That was freedom, wasn’t it? And then adulting caught up with you and now, whenever you spot an 087 number, you move away from polite company, put on an “adult” voice and calmly reply, “Ma’am, I’m well aware of my overdrawn account and yes, that revolving loan sounds like a splendid idea.”

Let me tell you what my definition of adulting is, having been an adult for 30 of the 47 years I’ve been alive. Adulting can be best described as, “if it’s fun, desirable or will make you happy, it’s not allowed”. About 90% of my existence is about keeping my wife, children, parents and other parasitic riffraff happy. The remaining 10% I spend on booze, data costs to remain live on Pornhub 24/7, fuel for driving nowhere slowly to far-flung lodges in the butt crack of Mpumalanga like Dullstroom and stuffing R20 notes into the bikini shorts of strippers at The Summit club in Hillbrow.

That’s my low-key way of bragging about my fabulous, adventurous life.

However, I must confess that I engage in many activities that are anti-adulting. For instance, the BOM is perpetually perplexed at the rate we seem to go through Cremora. What she doesn’t know is that I take a scoopful of Cremora into my mouth at least once a day. I can’t help it. I do

Let me tell you what my definition of adulting is: ‘If it’s fun, desirable or will make you happy, it’s not allowed’

not want to get into the conversation about why Milo disappears from the container so quickly. My adulting skills do not surmount dry Milo in my mouth. And then there’s cheesecake-flavoured ice cream. My brain goes to mush and I cannot locate the ice-cream bowls. This makes eating directly out of the tub a necessity. Look, what you ideally want to do is place a bowl of water next to the freezer, take a scoop into the mouth, rinse the spoon, take another scoop, repeat. But if I can’t locate the ice-cream bowl, where on Lucifer’s planet would I find the energy to find a bowl of water?

These are some of the examples of how committed I am to this adulting thing. Sometimes I even guzzle juice directly from the carton because — you know — er, you know why. Especially when no-one is watching.

I believe this was the real motivation behind the government of Brazil sending out a communique that encouraged citizens to pee in the shower. This was ostensibly to save precious water, but I’m not convinced that was the real reason. I think they threw their hands in the air after having shower exhaust water analysed and discovering more than 1,000 parts per million was pee.

I refuse to acknowledge that my toothbrush periodically falls into the toilet bowl and that I fish it out, run it under boiling water and anoint it “fresh as new”. That would be disgusting. I will say this, though.

I’m raising upstanding citizens of the future, ideal world. The other day, I was collecting ice cubes from my fridge ice dispenser and some of them fell onto the floor. Like the upstanding, mature adult that I am, I kicked the fragments under the fridge. After I was done, I looked up and found my 11-year-old lastborn staring at me, jaw scraping the floor.

I think the planet is in safe hands.