Bafana Khumalo Native Tongue
EVERYONE knows I’m a sucker, don’t they? I have been taken for a ride on more occasions than there have been marches in this country. Every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to take me for a ride whenever they see me.
They know they will succeed — all they need to do is tell me some long, involved story and I reach for my not-so-well-stocked pocket and, voila, they are richer for the effort.
Some people, on the other hand, don’t know that I am such an easy mark and they really go the extra mile to con me. Take the man who entered a trendy, buppy- infested restaurant and started placing key rings on the tables. These were regular plastic, square, transparent key holders in which one can place a photograph. The kind one gets as a promotional gimmick and never uses as it looks so tacky. Besides, who wants to be seen with a key ring that says, “RDP, your thousand year guarantee programme”?
This key ring had a special touch to it. It did not appeal to the yuppie screaming to get out of me, nor did it appeal to the sluppy in me. A sluppy, dear ignorant reader, is a Slightly Left Upwardly Mobile Person. The difference between this kind of animal and a yuppy is that while a yuppy will sleep with anything that moves to work his way to the top, a sluppy confines his upwardly mobile fornication to people who can recite the communist manifesto, even if they have to write it on their palms to help them along.
I digress. I was telling you about the key rings. The man placed them on the overflowing tables. Next to the slim cellular phones, the key rings lay forlorn and pleaded for attention from the patrons whose lives are spent in meetings and interfacing.
I looked at the key ring at my table, which did not have a cellular phone and at which the only interfacing going on was between my lips and a drink. I read the legend on the plastic object: Excuse me, I am deaf. Would you like to buy this key ring? Your contribution will be appreciated. Price: R20.
I realised I was being sent on a guilt trip. There was no way my conscience would allow me not to buy a key ring I do not need. I felt like sneaking out and not making eye contact with the man — the way I do when I see those soul-saving Jehovah’s Witnesses at street corners. My eye went back to the key holder. I was stuck to my seat. I could not get up to run away from my conscience, which had, by now, bought a one-way ticket on a guilt trip.
I reached into my wallet to retrieve the brown piece of paper, to give it to the man. He was pleased, he said thank you, touching his lips with his fingers, and I, not knowing any sign language, reciprocated in the same manner.
I forgot about the key ring for a few days as I left it in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing. When I did wear the jacket again I was with my dreaded dearly beloved who is convinced I am the world’s only living brain donor.
I showed her the key ring, thinking she would reach out, hug me and tell me that on judgment day I will be sitting next to the prince of princes for I have a heart of gold. Expecting to receive my brownie points, I instead heard her dreaded derisive laughter. “You paid R20 for this piece of junk because it had this written on it?”
I asked her how much she thought it cost and, without hestitation, she told me. “R2,50 — now you have to tip the waiter more than the 10 cents you usually give …”