En Passant: Yes, it’s Comrades time again

LAST WEEK I was rummaging around in the bottom of my built-in cupboard, and found some weird and wonderful stuff. Among sundry old magazines there was an old edition of Playboy from December 1993, the first published in South Africa after they were declared un-prohibited material (it was boring – I mean, I wanted nudie pics of Cindy Crawford not some Doris from Cape Town), there were three odd slippers, two pairs of old shoes with holes in their soles, a couple of crumpled shirts that had fallen off their hangers above, an old 8mm home movie projector, a camera tripod, an empty J&B whisky box (don’t ask me why, I dunno), an old toothbrush with splayed bristles, an old moth-eaten bedspread, an old electric blanket with a dodgy switch, four or five ancient picture frames none with their glass, Henry Ford’s old number plates and a new air filter (ag, man, Henry, you know, my old Cortina bakkie), half a packet of Chesterfield Lights from when I used to smoke (now nearly five years ago), my old Commando raincoat, the box of a non-stick frying pan which one had to keep in order to validate its guarantee (bought 12 years ago), half a dozen Lion Lager bottle tops, lots of dust and balls of lint and numerous used ear buds.

There was a lot of other stuff but I was really looking for something else, and as I continued to rummage I suddenly had the feeling someone was behind me. It was Doris.

She was acting on her feminine instinct that tells all mothers that if their child, husband or partner is too quiet for too long, then they are up to mischief. She said, “I hope you’re going to clean up all this mess,” and she pointed to the pile of stuff behind me. Then she added, “What are you actually looking for?”

“I’m looking for my old takkies,” I said, “the ones I fixed a couple of years ago with the left-over contact glue from the loo floor tiles. You know, ‘cos their soles were coming away from the uppers. I can’t find them.”

She muttered something, and if my lip-reading skills are anything to go by she appealed to the Almighty for strength, and asked, “Why?”

“I have decided, ” I said, “to throw caution to the wind, to gird my loins (whatever that entails and regardless of the expense), to grab the opportunity by the horns, to put aside procrastination and to carpe the bleeding diem, to seize the day in fact, and run the Comrades this year.”

“Do you know when it is?” she asked.

“I dunno,” I said, “June 16, isn’t it? Youff Day”

“Actually, no,” she said, “it’s this Sunday, the 31st of May.”

“You’re kidding!” I said, feeling a rising panic in my scrawny chest. “Then my quest is now more urgent than ever. I must find my takkies and hit the road, Jack, with some serious training.”

“Serious training?” said Doris, as if there was some doubt about my use of the adjective.

“Well,” I said, “I thought I might just jog down to the Spoeg & Spittle, where, in the manner of a water-table slash refreshment station in the real race, I’ll replace lost body fluids by way of a couple of small Hansas, and at the same time see if any of the lads would like to accompany me on this mission.

“Thing is, see,” I added, “I need a second…”

“You need more than that, dear,” she said, “you have to complete the race in 12 hours, I guess you’ll need 12 days.”

“Oh ye of little faith,” I said, “but when I say I need a second, I mean I need one of the blokes to a) drive me down to the start, b) pick me up at the finish, and c) meet me here and there en route with a bucket of Deep Heat, a selection of Band Aids, a carbo-loading wors roll and a couple of Hansa dumpies.”

“And an ambulance,” I am almost sure I heard her mutter as she turned and left.

I continued to rummage, found all my old running kit – the vest with the curry stains and cigarette burns, my silky silk running shorts with the split up the side (which I had to tie up with a piece of string ‘cos the elastic had gone “pap”), my Rambo sweatband – and was dressed and jogging on the spot when Doris returned.

“Are these what you’re looking for?” she asked, and held up my takkies.

“Yes, they are! Thank you, my petal. Where were they?” She said they were in the broom cupboard, at the bottom, and indeed as I sniffed them I could smell the heady and familiar aroma of Cobra lavender wax floor polish. But woe! The soles were coming away again.

In the passage cupboard I found the tin of contact glue, but the lid had been left off, the glue had turned into granite.

“This,” I said to Doris, “could spell the end of my Comrades running ambitions. I’ve seen the price of new takkies. Is it worth it?”

“Probably not,” said Doris. “Besides,” she said, looking at my legs sticking out of my running shorts, “if you were seen outside in those shorts you’d probably be arrested for having no visible means of support.”

“Ha, ha, very funny!”

“Do you want some tea?” she asked.

“Yes, please.”

“OK, tidy up here and come through. What shall I do with these?” and she held up my old takkies.

“Ag, put them back in the broom cupboard. Maybe next year I’ll need them.”

So, it’s the Comrades on TV again this year.