Where did you buy your license, the toilet store?

 I totally stole my joke from Anchor Man.

I am staying at my grandparent’s marvelous beach house on the North Coast of Natal.  Presently I am watching a bird of prey glide overhead looking for snakes in the undergrowth.  Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge and threw some wilted carrots and nectarines into the dense foliage to decompose only to have them hurled back at me minutes later (minus a bite out of each) by a troop of monkeys.  I got my revenge when I dislodged a small monkey from its branch whilst disposing of some partially frozen bananas that had been lurking at the back of the fridge.

My return to South Africa has not been all cruelty to animals with frozen fruit.  For a start my digestive tract has been so Anglosized that it is working with an alarming over regularity to deal with African kos (food) and dare I say water.  Last week I retired to my bed with the consumption and surfaced days later after existing on a diet of: Breakfast – one quality street chocolate.  Lunch – one chicken nugget. Supper – a bowl of rice crispies. Let me just say that such a diet does not play out well the following day.  But on the plus side I am at the skinniest I’ve been in some years, possibly even at pre-pubescent levels (to borrow a quote from the Devil Wears Prada ‘I’m one stomach flu away from my goal weight’).

My road rage seems to be inversely proportional to my weight loss, therefore the skinnier I become the more enraged I am with fellow road users.  It seems that in my year long absence a new glut of driver’s purchased their driving licenses and luxury vehicles to boot.  I have taken to counting to 12 before driving through a green robot (traffic light) to allow other ‘colour blind’ drivers a chance to travel through the opposing red light.  I have also been reminded of the favourite trick of my road comrades i.e. driving with their hazard lights on, thus allowing them to: A) turn left B) turn right C) carry on straight ahead D) stop suddenly in the road – preferably across a busy junction E) reduce their pace to a dawdle and swerve slowly from side to side.  The over use of hazard lights is preferable to the complete non-use of flickers (indicators), which is also a common affliction and makes for a fun round of the Arsehole driver’s guessing game, wherein I guess what the Arsehole in the car ahead is going to do.  I have attempted to allow for the A*hole factor by increasing my following room, but this is seen as a sign of weakness and a fellow non-idicating tit-shit will appear in your rearview mirror overtake on a blindrise/over a painted line and slot into your neatly measured safety zone.  If I am mildly enraged behind the wheel of my car that I scream things like “Nice driving Dude!” or “Where did you buy your license friend?” as I grow more distraught I move on to shouting the usual indelicate profanities and throwing in some new linguistic gems like “monkey-naaier” (monkey-fornicator) or just good old “poo-head” whilst gesticulating wildly.  

I have of late become particularly apoplectic by drivers of a the new VW bakkie (pickup) called an Amarok – for starters it’s a stupid name, which in my unscientific view causes a phenomenon known as I’macock driving.  My blood pressure was raised to such an extent by an Amarok driver who turned left across me and oncoming traffic from the right turning lane, whilst talking on his phone, that I suddenly fantasized about owning a large 4x4 vehicle with a bull-bar and fully comprehensive insurance.  If my fantasy had come true at that moment I would have purposefully driven straight in the Amacocker and claimed ‘oops, my foot slipped.’

Until a wealthy and anonymous benefactor bestows my dream vehicle upon me I’m thinking of investing in an airhorn or mega-phone and a box of eggs.