En Passant: The State of the Household

FOLLOWING on from the hullabaloo in Parliament when ol’ Jacob Zuma was to deliver the State of the Nation address, I thought it might be a good idea to also have a State of the Household address. I mean, why not? Why should we want to know how the country’s doing if we don’t know how we ourselves are doing? Besides, financially we are under just as much pressure, aren’t we?

So, last week Thursday, as the self-appointed President of the residence, I summoned the household together. It might not have been as grand as the Parliament in Cape Town because there were only the three of us – Me (the President), Doris (Minister of the Kitchen and Domestic Affairs) and Teaspoon, the parrot, who could be Minister of Making a Bloody Noise Without Saying Anything Intelligible, which if you think about it might describe a number of individuals in Parliament in Cape Town.

To keep things official, I made a record of the proceedings, my own sort of Hansard, which I’d like now to share with you so that you can have some sort of idea of the kind of stresses us Presidents have to put up with.

Me: Honourable Doris, Honourable Parrot, welco…

Doris: Point of Order!

Me: Point of Order?

Doris: Yes, point of Order. Do you mind?

Me: Of course not. What is it, dear?

Doris: Teaspoon should be addressed by his name – Honourable Teaspoon, not Honourable Parrot. You didn’t say “Honourable Human Being” to me, did you? Why discriminate against him being a parrot?

Me: OK, OK, for Pete’s sake. Honourable Doris, Honourable TEASPOON, welcome to this State of the Household address during wh…

Doris: Pay back the money! Pay back the money!

Teaspoon: Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck! Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck!

Me: What? What are you talking about?

Doris: Pay back the money! Pay back the money!

Teaspoon: Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck! Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck!

Me: What money?

Doris: Two weeks ago you took R15 out of Teaspoon’s pension money, you said to buy a pie for lunch. You said you’d pay it back when you’d been to the bank. You haven’t.

[Perhaps I should explain. Doris and I figure that Teaspoon, being an African Grey, will probably out-live us. Into an old fish bowl we put all our change for Teaspoon’s pension scheme, figuring that we won’t be there to look after him. This money is what Doris is referring to.]

Me: OK, I’ll pay it back after this session.

Doris: Pay back the money! Pay back the money!

Teaspoon: Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck! Gghgd qwj hrj qwqnkck!

Me: Oh for Pete’s sake! I’ll get my wallet. [Clink, clink.] Satisfied? Stone me, it’s not as if I built a flippen swimming pool.

Doris: Thank you, Mr President.

Me: Stop being sarcastic. OK, where was I? Welcome everybody to this State of the Household address. We have come through another year and managed to keep body and soul together despite various morons on the road trying to separate the two. However, given this threat to life and limb, the fiscus does not allow us to invest in air-bags for my old Cortina bakkie, Henry Ford, nor your old Golf, Doris, so it is the recommendation of this government that we drive defensively.

That means, Doris, that you must stop aiming at tardy pedestrians.

On the subject of finances, we have come through the year in the black, and for this achievement I wish to commend the Minister of Domestic Affairs for her canny marketing in the face of rampant food price increases, let alone cleaning materials. Given the price of lamb, for example, it is a miracle that we have had a nice little lamb curry as often as we have. For that we must thank Checkers who have had occasional specials on lamb packs.

And regarding cleaning materials, washing powder has become a luxury, and at times we have had to resort to one-ply bog-rolls until the old two-ply come back on special, but this has hardly been a hardship, let alone a pain in the butt.

But having said that we’re in the black, does not mean that we have accumulated any financial fat. This year we had to pay in to the taxman (again), rates and service fees from the municipality again seemed to go through the roof, and although petrol, towards the end of this financial year came down in price, it was still a severe drain on disposable income during most of this year, impacting on the President’s beer expenditure.

Regarding the taxman, I am seriously considering getting Henry Ford’s odometer fixed so that I can keep a record of the mileage done for work purposes, and claim on my tax return accordingly.

Doris: Point of Order.

Me: What now?

Doris: It just shows how old fashioned you are, talking about mileage. Tax returns and cars now work in kilometres.

Me: Ja, but there is no such word as kilometreage, is there?

Doris: I dunno. And anyway, I don’t aim for pedestrians.

Me: Oh yes you do. Those ones that saunter across the road like they’ve all the time in the world. I’ve been in the passenger seat – it’s like driving with Mad Max. They could make a movie about your driving, call it Mad Doris.

Doris: Ag, man, this is ridiculous. Do you want some tea?

Me: Ja, OK. Meeting adjourned.