Old Takkies Indaba

“Am I losing my hair?”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Isn’t my baby beautiful?”

Is your epiglottis in danger of being swallowed?

Not mine.

I’m expected to answer questions like these all the time.

I get asked these questions because I’m a freak of nature – like one of those people who attract lightning bolts, and I’m forced to answer them.

I’m forced to answer them because I have no choice in the matter.

I have no choice in the matter because I cannot lie.

That’s right. There it is. It’s out there – I am incapable of lying.

And people supernaturally seem to know this.

My inability to deceive is not only evident in the obvious – like a whopping uncover-up story, an off-white lie, and a ‘no Oscar to the lady with the fake illness’ performance.

Even in silence the truth is broadcasted by my face.

Disclosing my number to demonstrate what happens when I attempt to hide behind a telephone would be privacy-suicide. Sorry.

Case study #9347945608456983456∞ shall have to suffice:

Answering “Absolutely,” after a guy at a wedding asked me, “Do you think I’m fat?”, it was later revealed to me that he was a psychiatric patient suffering from Body Dismorphic Disorder, and I had possibly set him back years in therapy.

Later, this same man asked me if I thought his ugly girlfriend was pretty.

I said nothing.

“I knew it!” he screamed.

“I said nothing!” [twice to one man in one night God!]

“You didn’t have to,” he pointed at my face, “You. Cannot. LIE!”

And so, if you have a shred of pity for me, read the following and, just this once, kindly bare before me the naked truth:

I am the product of an Apartheid-supporting family. I am also the product of a family so petty, a grandparent despised their grandchild into adulthood for observing a rotten front tooth while perched upon his knee.

Hence, I do not want to find a microfibre of pettiness entwined anywhere in the fabric of my being.

Is it?

I understand the irrationality of petty Apartheid.

The thought of “Whites Only” insignia offends my cerebral cortex.

However, on instinct I act as if they didn’t.

I’d like to see a mental Pass Book every time I wonder when they’re going to stop allowing illegal immigrants across the border, and give us whitey’s a chance to make up numbers.

I baulk at the sight of Heidi Klum and Seal kissing.

A black man may take the front seat in a taxi – I’d rather be left standing next to my broken down vehicle in quicksand than climb on board.

And I’ll gladly step off the pavement if he’s walking toward me – even quicker if he’s approaching from behind with speed!

I shall not attend any black club, restaurant, shop or church. The very thought makes me contort in my chair in such a way I may need a chiropractor – a white one.

I find a white waiter serving black customers unfitting, a white woman holding a black baby biologically immoral, a white beggar unjustifiable [and always give him more money], and many more of these consciously illogical black-man-invading-white-world situations abhorrent.

And that’s the brutal truth.

Now it’s your turn.

Do these ingrained reactions toward a history of petty Apartheid make me a petty person?