I’m not one for planning much. This made the arrival of a recommended timetable for GDA (postgrad Accounts) prescribing 5 and a half hours of tut and lecture preparation every weekday and 15 hours extra on weekends and evenings as welcome in my house as Julius Malema at a Maths convention. Despite planning playing a negligent role in the selection, or random appearance, of topics in my series of writing – still trying to find a better word for blog -, I’ve always set out to avoid the slightly controversial topics of politics and religion. There’s definitely a saying full of rhyming – no, I cannot just ‘Bust a rhyme’ on the spot - and alliteration out there that goes on about not talking or commenting on things you know nothing about. Abe Lincoln’s: “It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” works pretty well. However, seeing that a former bodybuilder and ‘star’ of a movie called Kindergarten Cop hailing from The Netherlands who describes the feeling he gets from pumping iron to an orgasm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMjG2s6UOaw) can successfully run for governor of a U.S. state and that Julius Malema and Paris Hilton talk at all, I don’t feel completely unqualified about mentioning either of the topics in passing.
Going to Sunday school regularly for a good portion of my childhood has got me through a fair share of 30 Seconds games and, from what I can immediately recall, there are a few biblical guidelines that make bugger-all sense to me. Without delving into the most controversial of these and painting little red horns on my head, I can’t see the sense in not eating bacon, getting slapped twice when you can settle with one, and doing nothing on Sundays. I’d understand if Saturday was the day of rest but I guess that when Sunday was chosen the Jews of the day must have jolled lank on Saturday nights and the majority of sport was probably televised on Sundays.
Another of these inexplicable guidelines is the ‘love thy neighbour’ one. In theory I guess it’s understandable: the post-nap walk of shame is a helluva lot shorter. However, this theory gets put to a serious test when you get served up the variety of neighbours the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town has to offer. After 18 years on a farm and likeable enough res neighbours, the digs I lived in for two years proceeding my comparably quiet 1st year in Rochester House landed me a reputation as a prized prick and made my presence in the neighbourhood as welcome as a Justin Bieber song at a Metallica concert– although I actually can’t see why anyone wouldn’t love a good JB track!
My arch-nemesis came in the form of an overweight 50-odd-year old man who had the dress sense of a plumber and the apparent hygiene levels of a hippie camping in a tree. The first time my digs mates and I were fortunate enough to meet him we were so under the weather that we couldn’t recall his name. After his umpteenth tirade about his daughter’s disrupted studies – every time he mentioned his beloved daughter I couldn’t focus on the rest of his rant as my mind became utterly perplexed with how any woman bar a pre-fame and makeover Susan Boyle would agree to sleep with him – we gave up completely and labelled him KC – the first word being King and the second rhyming with ‘punt’. KC’s sidekick identified herself when I drove past an elderly woman one particular afternoon and my friendly wave was returned with a middle finger and a mouthing off, the content of which was inaudible from within my car.
My 2 digs mates managed to stay unidentified by the neighbours for the entirety of our two year stay at our digs on the bottom of Woolsack drive. Between my folks owning the house and my Mother writing ‘Buster’ on my doorbell, right in between ‘unit 4’ and ‘unit 6’, it didn’t take long before I was looked at as the spawn of Satan and solely blamed for the noise emanating from any house in the complex – admittedly, in the first year, all of it was coming from our apartment. Being hated is never particularly pleasant unless you’re despised for winning. However, seeing that my school hasn’t won our rugby derby for more than 15 years - I’ve lost count - and UCT are yet to beat the maroon baboons in a Varsity Cup Final -our time will come and it will be glorious- the hatred toward me was most definitely not jealousy-inspired.
A move to a house close to the Rondebosch common managed to halt the flow of hate mail and cops at our front door and offered an insight into the truly diverse specimen that is the neighbour. I was never fortunate enough to meet the neighbours living a mere metre away from my bedroom window but after a year I do know that they have three little children, two of which speak English and really love singing nursery rhymes and another that cries like a chick watching a Hugh Grant movie marathon. The timing of these noisy and highly annoying outbursts couldn’t possibly be more precisely timed to coincide with my attempted study sessions. The children speaking English remains a mystery to me as I never heard a word of English uttered from an adult in the house, despite the fact that masses of adults pass through the place in a fashion that suggests the house is the home to Congolese drug lords, a centre for human trafficking or an employment office for aspiring car guards. Either way, they managed to mask all the dodgy - or not so dodgy if you think I’m being a bit judgemental - stuff that went on inside by cranking up their music to full blast from 7a.m sharp every morning and blessing my bedroom with the same CD of African reggae to make sure I thought twice before ever trying to sleep off a hangover or have a nice late morning lie-in.
Another digs change means another set of neighbours. With GDA requiring work to be a priority, house parties will have to be well planned and allow me to send around carbon copies of the noise warnings I sent to my neighbours from last year. I’ll also be sure not to label my house, retaliate to unnecessary old lady tirades by emptying pot plants on cars, give my father’s contact details to disgruntled neighbours – nothing pisses off a dairy farmer more than being woken up with a complaint about his son two hours into his sleep, even if it is only 9:30pm – or allegedly force a grade 11 girl into boarding school because she can’t study – it’s a pleasure Grade 11 Girl, I’m sure life away from that miserable piece of wife-dependant waste of space was far more pleasant. Now to think of a good theme for the digs warming...
