Why buffalo can’t fly

THESE days it’s as if we cannot decide what’s making us most miserable. There’s such an extravagant banquet available: load shedding, water shutdowns, violence, corruption, potholes … who could possibly decide?

Ag ja … of course, but those are the common irritations.

It should not be, but our country’s leadership has managed to make these service delivery and safety issues commonplace.

In fact I was telling a friend the other day that what concerns me is that my generation grew up under an oppressive government where the majority of our country’s citizens suffered while a favoured minority prospered; now we live in a free country where more citizens are suffering while a smaller, elite minority are enjoying life.

At least the misery is more widespread now. I guess that’s what was meant by ‘equality’.

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It’s alarming to think that one day our descendants will not remember a time when South Africa had things like quality roads, functioning railways, water in their taps and reliable electricity. Not to mention feeling relatively safe on the streets or in your home.

But let’s leave that for now. Today let’s talk about other irritations.

I am referring to annoyances like the fact that, despite appearances, nobody told us that a ‘gallus domesticus’ is bigger than a ‘bovidae’ – said another way, a chicken is bigger than a buffalo!

The other day someone asked me, “What does a chicken weigh?”

I of course replied, “Give the chicken a big enough scale and enough money and he’ll weigh whatever you ask him to.”

No wonder I have so few friends.

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Anyway, a whole adult chicken weighs about three kilograms, and when I did biology back in Primary school, I learned that a chicken wing has three sections: the drumlet (similar to an ‘upper arm’), the wingette (like a ‘forearm’) and the tip (if a chicken had a ‘hand’ this would be it). A full chicken wing should weigh around 21 grams, which is not too bad.

However, every time I order buffalo wings at a restaurant I am disappointed! The wing of a buffalo – an animal that weighs around a ton – weighs (I am estimating) around nine grams, and it has only one section. No wonder buffalos can’t fly … which, come to think of it, is a good thing because can you imagine washing your car after parking it under a tree in which a buffalo was perched?

Moving on … another proof that society is becoming more cruel and inhumane is the existence of hollow spaghetti; that’s a pasta abomination that looks like normal spaghetti but with a hole down the middle.

Look, I love spaghetti. I love most noodles, and there is no more satisfying sensation than (quietly and discreetly) slurping up a long strand of flavoured noodle.

However, every romance hits a crisis, and the other day, I was invited to lunch where the host served hollow spaghetti in a rich tomato gravy. I dug in, but when I tried to suck in the noodle, quietly and discreetly as I normally do, all that happened was that it just dangled from my mouth and made a ‘brrrt’ sound.

The host’s wife said, “Open the window Hubert.”

But worse than buffalo wings and hollow noodles, at the top of my list of lowest things one can experience is our country’s plug standard.

In SA there are three plug standards. The ‘Type M’ socket and plug, is the bulky three-prong plug that we all know, the ‘Type C’ which is the two prong plug that is also pretty common, and now there is also a ‘Type N’ socket and plug which looks like a Type C with an extra middle prong.

Oh, did you know that apparently though the Type M standard is ubiquitous it is slowly being phased out?

But I am not done with the Type C problem, because this plug standard must have been forged in Mordor, with the sole intention of frustrating electricity users.

Firstly, if you purchase an appliance with a Type C plug, you are not allowed to remove it and replace it with a more user-friendly Type M plug. That would invalidate your warranty; so you are stuck with your Type C.

So what do you do? Get yourself an adapter of course. But remember that the Type C adapters are often so bulky that if you own a multiplug with a few Type M slots, when the Type C adapter is plugged in, it usually results in one or two of your multiplug’s Type M openings being rendered unusable because they are obscured by the Type C adapter.

Furthermore, Type C plugs don’t only come in one shape. Some are round and some have ‘shoulders’, and then appliances like laptops or televisions sometimes have adapters of their own that have their own unique shape. Which means that often you have to buy a specific type of Type C adapter to use specific appliances!

No wonder South Africans are so angry these days.

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Oh, and then if you try to tidy things up and buy one multiplug adapter to accommodate your Type M, Type C and Type N plugs, good luck. Above all, you may not find that multiplug readily available, and more often than not, if you do, you will find that your plugs have to be jiggled, wiggled or wedged before the current flows.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to use the word ‘flows’ during a dry spell. I was actually trying to take everyone’s minds off the dry taps. But look on the bright side; for a few minutes you were upset about something other than a water shutdown.

You’re welcome; I am always glad to help.

This probably answers the question that no one ever asked: “Can you be electrocuted by a newspaper story?”

Now we know … The answer may shock you.