Picture: Brandon Slattery from Pixabay
BEING sent to the corner shop ranged from being a bit of a nuisance to being downright child abuse, depending on what you were doing when your folks needed something from the café.
If your siblings were working on your nerves or if your radio show wasn’t playing at the time, it was almost a pleasure to jog down the road and back. But if your cousins were visiting or Jet Jungle was on the radio, how could your parents expect you to tear yourself away for something as mundane as bread shopping?
You couldn’t protest, complain or even frown – remember, it was the ’80s and parents had rights back then – but there was always the 20 cent trick.
For those who do not understand, here is how my early-teen obedience worked: When sent, I would not protest nor scowl, but would – seemingly cheerily, and with a lilting “of course Mother and Father” – head straight down to the shop, making sure there was a 20 cent coin in my pocket, and I would buy the bread.
However, remember, the instruction from the folks was for me to BUY the bread, and that’s where things changed. Once that exchange was completed and duty was done, I would plonk the bread on the side of the Space Invaders video game machine, insert my coin and proceed to protect the earth (my parents included) from the very real threat of alien invasion … No child wants to see his folks probed, after all.
On a good day (for me) I would be back home in 45 minutes, seeing as I wasn’t a video game maestro. On a bad day it was hardly worth it; just two waves of alien ships, a moment of broken concentration, and I’d be walking home again.
Now though many of my trips were not that long, some parents must have thought their child had been abducted by aliens. You see, at the shops there was a pinball machine. This was a mechanical machine, with bells, lights, flippers and those shiny metal balls, and there were a few guys in our community – of the bigger boys – who were pinball wizards. I also have to mention that there was also that one chap who just stood head and shoulders above the rest; he had “flipper fever”!
On occasion we’d be sent to the shop three or four times some days, and sometimes, on those days, each time you entered the store, you’d find that same boy playing pinball. On each visit you made to the shop his score was a few hundred thousand points higher, but the loaf of bread he had been sent for was still on the machine, off to one side so as not to obscure his view.
Ah yes, we were rebels!
For the record, even a 30- to 45-minute game of Space Invaders flew by for me as if in a blink. But when I got home the people – who had not been probed by aliens – took it upon themselves to loudly recite from the book of Palm Readers … in other words, they “told me my fortune” (that’s a euphemism).
Thinking back, I wonder what kind of tongue lashing that pinball wizard guy was subjected to when he brought home what must have been a pretty stale loaf of bread.
But did our parents not understand that we – Pinball Guy and I – were preparing them for life in South Africa during the 2020s?
Before I explain, let me say that sometimes delays are inevitable. Just this week I “quickly” stepped away from my desk to go and buy drinking water. On the way home, I heard a thump in the car’s trunk. I wanted to pull over and check, but told myself that the cap was probably tightened on the water bottle that had fallen.
Of course I was wrong, and I spent a long time mopping up water and drying the mats. So my “quickly” almost turned into annual leave!
But those kinds of delays are inevitable; yes, they are irritating and frustrating and can turn your plans upside down, but they are manageable, and can help you develop the grace of patience.
And yes, for those who know me, at just about this point I was going to go into a long tirade about how long residents in our city have been waiting for efficient, systematic, effective change in our city. It’s a real schlepp to have to wait for roads to be repaired after potholes have been dug up, there are still suburbs where water runs down the street seemingly without end, and so much more …
But I will not get into all of that especially after what I witnessed the other day when I was in a queue just behind a man at an ATM in the CBD.
The power in the area kept tripping, and as a result, the queue wasn’t moving.
Everyone was frustrated, but especially so, the man in front of me.
After we had waited for over an hour he lost his patience and yelled: “Kimberley’s mayor is to blame for this. I'm going to his office and I am going to beat the snot out of him!” And off he stormed.
However, just 20 minutes later he was back in line at the ATM.
“Why are you here again,” I asked, “Did you change your mind?”
“No,” he replied, “But the line in front of his office at the municipality is twice as long as this one …”