Johannesburg- I accompanied a friend to refurbish her kitchen this week.
Despite my hatred for shopping, she had always been my crush, alongside Mary J Blige, and I hadn’t seen her in years.
So, off we went to Smeg in Bryanston. As you would know, Smeg is the appliance maker for the well-heeled, from kettles to washing machines. And they don’t come cheap.
The sales lady spent some time demonstrating how the dishwashing machine works and how the dual electric and gas stove would make life easier, especially during these crazy times when Eishkom cannot keep the lights on.
I went along and pretended I was interested although my only interest was seeing how my friend seemed to mellow with age. I wondered why I never proposed to her all those years. I have no doubt we would have made a couple of the year. Well, that ship had sailed now.
It was near the end of the business when she finally selected the items she wanted to buy.
They cost an arm and a leg and I was mightily impressed when she took out her bank card to swipe the whole lot.
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The sales lady assured her the items would be couried.
She had just put the card into the machine when poof, Eskom pulled a fast one and ensured there would be no Smegging that day.
You should have seen the sales lady’s face. She was gutted and my friend mightily disappointed as she needed the goods to furnish her new mansion in Polokwane.
Outside, the robots were on a blink and Jozi motorists struggled to decide how to treat intersections.
It had been a long day and we decided to go somewhere and unwind with a meal. Of course, when we got there Eskom had other ideas.
Fellow South Africans, welcome to Africa. For many years, we South Africans believed we were bees’ knees, as one former Zambian vice-president once pointed out. South Africans like to believe that we are Africa lite and therefore unique.
Remember that time when, at the height of the Gauteng e-toll madness, former president Jacob Zuma insulted Malawian roads?
Eskom has in the past few weeks dragged Mzansi into its rightful place in Africa by plunging the country in darkness at sporadic times.
Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria, knows very well what we are going through as electricity is available in Lagos for less than five hours a day.
Blackouts have been a part of our landscape since Thabo Mbeki days, but Cyril Ramaphosa had promised us a new dawn. Thuma Mina, he said, and we believed him.
Suffer our beloved economy, which was in junk even before a bat was digested in Wuhan, China. Covid-19 has been a disaster, but Eishkom is definitely the apocalypse.
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