Two Bits – 15 May 2015

After grandfatherhood, can senility be far behind?
Load shedding, the curse of present day South Africa, has a lot to answer for. The expense, the inconvenience, the stupidity of it, is nothing compared to the embarrassment it caused me the other day.
But before I get on to that, it is said that the weatherman has the hardest job of all because he has to make a guess based on unpredictable data. However, the latest unpredictable data in town is the load shedding schedule. Does stage one mean we’re going to get it or not? Yes? No? The apps on my phone are supposed to take the guesswork out of it, but now even they’re confused. Take the ‘schedule’ out of it – the power is either on or off, and you’ll know it’s off when you’re in the dark.
Which is what happened the other day when I went for a swim at the Virgin Active gym. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a rectangular building, with the pool taking up half the ground floor space lengthwise. The walls on the road side are glass, so the area is lighted naturally. The other half of the building is the changerooms on the ground floor and the gym area on the mezzanine-type first floor, overlooking the pool. My point is that the pool is well lighted and in everybody’s view.
So while I’m in the changerooms, the lights go out. There are no windows there and it is completely pitch dark. The backup lighting didn’t kick in, but luckily I was already in my costume and so I felt my way out of there to the pool.
About 45 minutes later I finished swimming. My normal practice would be to walk through to the showers, strip in the shower then dry off before returning to my locker and dry clothes.
But this time I thought it would still be dark in the changerooms, so I’d better get my act together before going back in.
So, standing at the side of the pool in the broad daylight so I could see everything, I dried myself off . . . and then wrung the water out of my costume.
At that moment I realised, to my horror, that if I was wringing the water out of my costume . . . then I couldn’t be wearing it!
I put that costume back on so fast I tore it. Yes, in that instant I’d also thought of putting a towel around myself, but it’s a little handtowel-sized thing and won’t fit around my new grandfather-size waist. I ripped that costume on then looked around to see who’d seen me buck naked.
Have you ever had that dream where you’re standing at a cocktail party, or making a presentation at a business meeting, and suddenly realise that you’re not wearing your trousers? That awful, sinking feeling that you’re a complete tosser? This time you’ve gone too far? Well, I felt like that exactly.
As it turned out, nobody seemed to be looking at me. Nobody had fainted or was throwing up, either. Phew, I realised my brief appearance as a flasher might have gone un­–noticed, so I bolted for the changeroom where, to my annoyance, the backup lights were shining bright. All that for nothing!
Okay, so I got clean away with it. But I expect next time I go for a swim at the gym, they’ll be selling tickets.
But seriously, two weeks a new grandfather, and can senility be looming already?
* * *
Passengers on a plane are waiting for the flight to leave. The entrance opens, and two men walk up the aisle, dressed in pilot uniforms. Both are wearing dark glasses. One is using a seeing-eye dog, and the other is tapping his way up the aisle with a cane.
Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start.
The passengers begin glancing nervously, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they’re headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport.
As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plough into the water, screams of panic fill the cabin. But at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.
Up in the cockpit, the co-pilot turns to the pilot and says, “You know, Bob, one of these days, they’re going to scream too late, and we’re all gonna die.”
ABOVE: Reader Tanika Logan sent in this pic of her little boy enjoying his new swimming pool. Maybe they’re on special at Siza Water.