I’m not one of those high-maintenance women, truly I’m not. Wild Caucasian ponies couldn’t induce me to endure that refined form of torture that is a leg wax, and a Brazilian wax is simply the devil’s work. I’ve never been heard to wail over a broken nail or to refuse to leave the house until I’ve put on a face full of slap. Until last Thursday morning that is, when Eskom managed to shatter my image of myself as the kind of woman more concerned about what’s going on inside her head than on top of it.
Having spent the preceding week deep in the bush in Botswana in camps with no electricity, I had been unable to wash my hair. I am not one of those white girls who can just wash ‘n go, allowing their locks to dry gradually into silky waves cascading over their shoulders. My hair just lies there lumpishly, like compost with lots of awkward angles. My girlfriends with ”ethnic” hair will tell you that when the heavens open up I’m the first one running for cover, screeching ”Ohmigod, my hair will mince!”
I have the kind of mop that makes grown hairdressers go pale.
Anyway, last Tuesday morning dawned in the rainy Pudding Island bleakness that now passes for a Highveld summer and I leapt into the shower, shampoo in one hand, conditioner in the other, determined to wash the dust out of my tresses. And then the lights went out. ”Bugger, bugger, bugger,” I yowled, knowing that leaving the house with wet hair was to sentence myself to a whole day of trickles down the neck and possible double pneumonia. I consoled myself with the promise that I’d wash and blow dry it gently before bed that evening (a mammoth undertaking that takes about two hours if unaided).
Come Tuesday evening and chez Johnston was in the dark again. So far, so Zimbabwe.
Wednesday morning: rain again, power out again, greasy hair again.
Wednesday evening: fumble my way to the front door and collapse into my darkened bedroom, promising myself I’d be up before the power went out the next morning.
Thursday morning: up and at ’em, incredibly early for me. Singing ”glory hallelujah” I leap out of the shower and grabbed my hairdryer. At which point, as if they’d been watching me, Eskom pulled the plug. My scream, according to my neighbour three doors down, sounded like an animal caught in a gin trap.
By this stage I was gibbering: ”Not on a Thursday, not on deadline, NOT when I have to go to a dinner straight after work.”
I swore as I grabbed the phone (which was dead, of course, being one of those fancy, newfangled jobs that require electricity to function). I scrabbled for my cellphone and dialled the number of a friend down the road, praying she hadn’t left for work yet.
”It’smeit’sanemergencyhaveyougotelectricity?” I gasped.
”Yes, but I’m …”
”Notimetotalk, betherein5minutes.”
I leapt into my little car, stuffing my dryer into my bag and roared, like Noddy on acid, out into the road. Which not only happens to be a major taxi route, but on which the traffic lights were naturally banjaxed, allowing the inner anarchist in every taxi driver free rein.
I make it to my friend’s house in record time, lean on the bell until she opens up and sprint into her bedroom. I don’t even have the plug in the wall when, as if by magic, the lights go out. A strange calm overtakes me, a sense of certainty that I am dealing with forces greater than myself. (Or perhaps it was just the absence of my early morning tannin fix — can there be anything crueller than a cold kettle in the morning?)
I phone another friend, who lives a 15-minute drive in the other direction, going against the traffic. This time I manage to extract about 50 seconds worth of electricity before the Evil Eskom Empire strikes again. Inspiration strikes back. I dial a neighbour who owns a hair salon (yep, you guessed it, three suburbs away). They have power, and if I rush I can use their super-fast dryer. It is now 8.45 but I’m not giving up. I will NOT walk around with a head resembling a bird’s nest, damnit! Now it’s personal.
I stagger into the salon, looking as if I’ve just outrun a pack of wild dogs and collapse into the chair, clutching feebly for the dryer. One of her colleagues takes pity on me and does his best to blow dry the slowly kinking rats’ tails that now pass for my hair. At 9.20, despite that fact that my hair is still damp and going all fuzzy and static-y, I tear myself out of the chair and hurl my car into the pandemonium that is Jo’burg traffic when the lights go out. I stroll nonchalantly into the newsroom, hoping no one will notice. ”Your hair looks nice” says the boss. ”Oh, does it?” I simper in a tone of feigned surprise.
And that’s when it hit me: Eskom has not only brought the mining industry to its knees and scuppered our chances for the World Cup. It has achieved what patriarchy, parental disapproval and women’s magazines have failed to do — turned me into a raving kugel.