We went to the cinema and watched the
movie 'The Lorax'. It revolves around a young boy living in a
rather grim world surrounded by a huge wall and who falls in love with a slightly older girl.
This girl longs for a real ‘Truffula
tree’ in her garden that should still exist somewhere out there. And that’s how the adventure starts, the quest for a place outside
of the grim city, with all its rules, to find fresh air and that one tree.
All five of the family dutifully watched
the show. The two of those younger than 3½ years old, fell asleep halfway. Two
of us tried desperately to fight off sleep for the duration of the movie.
However the six-year old was quite entranced and re-enacted some scenes
afterwards - telling us that the “best part” was the scene with those dancing
zebras. It turns out that this particular scene was actually an advert for a
forthcoming release.
And then we came home and found a
letter wedged into our front door, which read (and here I summarize):
Your garage door should only be open
when you enter or leave. Your garage door is found open too often; it is sometimes
even left open at night. This is contrary to Article 17.2 of the Rules.... We have
received a complaint about it and have verified this allegation to be true as
from the 29th March this year.
I thought to myself, ‘Seriously?’
Then in Dutch or something very like it I used some words that would be
considered, well rude, and they probably lose a lot of their meaning in
translation.
After that I looked up the rules governing
the Estate.
Or well, I said, 'Joost where are the
rules?’ I need to point out that I am not the one whose job it is to administer,
since I am liable to get lost in this two-holed, colored ring binder world.
Anyway, I read the rules which read
blah-blah-fish paste, and it appears as if we are indeed contravening the rules
of OUR beautiful Estate.
It didn’t cause a nervous breakdown. Being
a nervous wreck over the rules of an Estate, where we voted with dead pan faces
the evening before on whether to allow dogs larger than 20kg, is subject to
inflation.
But still, were we possibly to blame
after all?
I suddenly remembered the cultural orientation
course that we attended when we had just moved to South Africa. I asked the trainer
and myself during the course why it was so difficult to arrange play dates for son
B. who was five by then.
The trainer did have a handy reply.
‘You are like the Swedes. The people
probably think that you walk around at home naked.’
Then he kept silent and gave us a
meaningful look.
OK, maybe it was not so much us, but
me. I was after all the one who opted to have an influenza vaccination done in
the pharmacy nearby administered by this muscular assistant. Instead of a white
lab coat he wore a brown T-shirt with the slogan ‘The girls want me like a
monkey wants a banana.’ This was hardly designed to set my mind at rest.
He administered the vaccination and
when he was finished he said, ‘I've done this one very nicely, nothing spilled!’
I looked and said, ‘I couldn’t have
done it better myself!’ I had no better retort and was actually quite happy
that he didn’t accidently ink a tattoo on my arm.
Then I read the side effects one
could get from the vaccine. “Patients may feel a little heavy-headed from the vaccination
as well as fatigue and lethargy.”
Actually I felt all the effects immediately.
In this state of heavy headed
lethargy my mind focused on our garage, packed with toys, the closed door, the open
door, the fact that we were running around naked behind that revolving door at
times when we have other children over for a play date, the fence surrounding
the Estate, the guys that trim your hedge, the guys that clean your pool, lapdogs
that are apparently appreciated on the estate and the black people that still
help the white people for a pittance.
I thought, all of this must be caused
by the side effects of the vaccine, because isn’t it fantastic.
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