You give me fever in the car park, fever there by the Spar
One of the occupational hazards that come with being a writer is that it’s impossible to observe strangers for more than five seconds without authoring a story about their lives in your head. One of the things I miss the most during this lockdown is driving to OR Tambo, grabbing a window at the Airport Craft Brewers pub in the domestic terminal and engaging in arrivals viewing.
The guy with the Bronx shoes, Woolies chinos and soulless eyes of a Dachshund: he’s an accountant returning from squeezing the last drop out of the regional operational budget in Durban. The haggard woman with bags under her eyes and two toddlers in tow is arriving from Zille’s Covid Republic to drop off the kids with their granny in Benoni before going on a welldeserved vacation in Spain.
That’s my roundabout way of letting you know that I know what I’m talking about when I tell you that I witnessed an illicit affair in progress the other day.
I pulled up at the parking lot of the Meyersdal Spar in Alberton to buy a few essentials. We all know what “essentials” means these days: Sparletta fizzy drinks for the kids, Pringles chips and one loaf of bread to make the trolley look lockdown compliant. Anyway, in the parking bay next to me was this couple in a car. I didn’t pay them much attention until I returned to my car 20 minutes later and they were still in animated, jovial conversation.
My immediate thought was that those two don’t live together because no husband and wife will sommer go park at the Spar and chat. Besides, they appeared too happy and touchyfeely to be a couple under lockdown together for 50-odd days. And she was at the steering wheel of the pink Hyundai Picanto they were seated in, which my toxic masculinity convinced me was her vehicle.
She wasn’t wearing a wedding band, looked about 35, hair dyed a scarlet shade and wearing a leopardprint top. I thought, nail parlour technician named Tiffani with an “i”. Kobus, on the other hand, sported a toupee that would put Riaan Cruywagen to shame and one of those two-tone AfriForum farmers’ hemde. The entire time they were gazing into each other’s eyes.
I have recently learnt that appointments to meet at the supermarket are “a thing”. Apparently, if Cape Town is the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in SA, then the frozen pea aisle at the Pick n Pay is the epicentre of the illicit romantic rendezvous pandemic.
The telltale sign that Ntate Mokoena might be in the clutches of
That’s my roundabout way of letting you know that I know what I’m talking about when I tell you that I witnessed an illicit affair in progress the other day
a paramour from Dobsonville is that he’s discovered newfound chivalry and proclaims to Mama Mokoena, “If anybody should risk this deadly virus, it should be me. Just give me the shopping list; I’ll brave the crowds at the Checkers Hyper.” He returns four hours later complaining loudly of the snaking queues.
Police minister Bheki Cele’s squad are obsessing over boozers and smokers, ostensibly to curb the spread of the virus. But if the police were to take a look, they’d discover thousands of cases of folks flouting lockdown regulations.
I understand that the skulduggery is not only taking place in supermarkets. With hotels and B&Bs closed, the more daring, imaginative and desperate among us are getting creative. Office park basements, warehouses and closed factories. Open fields are popular, I’m told.
Years ago, a friend of mine tells me, due to the state of sexual emergency she found herself in with her then boyfriend, they parked on one of the side streets off Jan Smuts Avenue in Randburg and got busy in the car.
In the middle of the act she hears the boyfriend mutter under his breath, “Why is your butt looking so blue?”
It’s when they look out the steamy car window that they realise that a police patrol car is parked abreast of them and the sergeants are enjoying a free show.
Now I’m no prude. I believe infinitely in the freedom of expression. And I’m not planting any ideas in our overly enthusiastic minister’s head. All I’m saying is that if we did establish the South African Police Service Morality Unit in these trying times, our exemplary police force would witness thousands of blue buttocks in cars around the nation. No lockdown formed against lovers shall prosper.