WHEN CHEAP IS EXPENSIVE
I mean, there I was, ecstatically holding another woman, right in front of my bemused wife and kid. Imagine the horror!
That beautiful moment between Thulsie and I which seemed to last forever brought a flood of memories. But then, as soon as it started, it all quickly came to a halt. There we were, and there was my wife and daughter standing right next to me, observing everything. I had to quickly disengage from one side and re-engage on the other. Quickly!
No one had to tell me that I had to explain all that which had just happened. Look, my brain is often quick when it comes to crafting fictitious stories to explain-away any situation I got myself into, but this time that huge boneless meat seemed to have shrunk to the most basic homo naledi level it could ever be.
Yes, it all happened yesterday.
With no words to explain or this quagmire, and my brain having totally abandoned our joint mission to always keep the peace in our family, with the bus drawing nearer, it dawned to me that I had purchased the cheapest ticket for my family's over seven-hour journey to Durban. Oh, more horror!
I was supposed to get tickets for the luxurious Dreamliner, but now this! Speak of having a day from hell, or, perhaps befittingly, having hell pay a quick visit to your peaceful day! Yes, I have special love for hell, but sometimes it chooses the wrong day and moment to make its presence known and felt.
As we were boarding, squeezing ourselves through that slim door, every step inside the bus merely confirmed the naked reality that we were indeed entering into the wonder world of cheap.
I could hear my wife nagging about Thulsie. "Tell me about you and her! How could you?! In front of our kid?! Really?!"
As every second passed by slowly, I kept wondering why I had foolishly failed to realise that I had purchased the cheapest ticket, which meant a terrible bus and unbearable journey ahead. Now there we were!
A little baby, whose soft cheeks and sparkling eyes had all along been relaxed, started crying as soon as the bus stopped in front of us. It was as if she had also been hit by the same surprise that had just floored me. But when she and her mother got into the bus, the baby’s wailing started, like she was screaming, "get me the hell out of this box!"
It was sad for the baby because none of us understood baby language that well, notwithstanding the fact that we have all been babies before and, surely, we should have easily remembered and understood baby language, our own “former” language, so that we could calm her. No?
My daughter, on the other hand, seemed to have her face mixed between sad and pensive, probably thinking why I had brought them to that bus or, more precisely, about the disaster that had just unfolded before her innocent young eyes at the park station.
"Ah, of course, what did I expect?" I silently said to myself, with a wistful smile on my face and eyes rolled back so hard I could see my brain, when I realised that the bus's phone-charging ports and aircon were not working. If only the aircon worked, perhaps it would have helped to quoickly drive out the hot stink that had hit me as soon as I got in, I thought. Perhaps even calm my unforgiving wife.
And so, having had the "honour" of getting the cheapest ticket to travel in a bus that does not have a toilet inside, I had to quickly adapt to my reality that my life throughout the journey would be an expensive one. A cheap ticket, somehow, always comes expertly laced with an expensive journey that can be endured only by the most daring of souls! Perhaps the whiskey I had sneaked into the bus would be of much needed help, I thought.
How long has it been since I prayed? I cannt really remember. Scientific me did not even pray for the safe delivery of my daughter some nine years ago, but this time I was forced into a silent prayer for my long legs as soon as I sat down and my knees touched the seat in front of me. The worst part is that those knee-cracking hard objects on the back of the seat in front of me kept hurting my knees.
This trip reminded me of one atrocious – no, genocidal – fifteen-hour journey I had endured with my colleagues to the Eastern Cape (University of Fort Hare) back in 2018 for a strategic retreat. Squashed for fifteen long hours in a minibus taxi, by the time we got to our destination in Alice I was deeply sick due to the stress I had suffered throughout that journey. If there is ever a journey I wish I could delete permanently from my life, it is that journey to Alice! What a curse of a journey! Thanks to that trip, I learned to come prepared with good whiskey whenever I took such long trips.
Our bus seemed to have more problems, and they kept unravelling one by one. Seated at the right side of the bus, closest to the window, I had to wrestle with an armrest that just would not allow itself to be adjusted up and out of the way. I asked for help from one of the drivers, but he also did not know what to do, nor did he even know if that armrest had ever moved, or if it was bolted and shut. And thus, it came to be that some fifteen minutes after departing from Johannesburg, sitting unevenly, with my right arm on the remarkably high armrest, the top of my right shoulder started screaming with piercing pain. And I was still to endure that pain for the next seven whole hours or more, and on the other side there was my wife still with that "I need answers now” eye.
I still had no clue how I would explain all that scandal, but I could see that I had to because seven whole hours is too long to ignore what happened.
Along the road, I tried to reflect on how best I could get away with this. I remembered that sometime back, social media was on fire with pictures of EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters) members of Parliament wearing red overalls but also carrying what seemed to be expensive Gucci bags. Expensive shoes too.
“Gucci and flare, on behalf of the poor masses,” went one criticism.
With such and other social media stories, I was hoping to distract my wife, hoping to take her away from what had happened at the park station, but it was like pouring petrol into a raging fire.
Often on social media I also see other people parading their expensive clothes and cars. These things make me wonder whether their expensive "taste" helps them live a not-so-expensive life, due to whatever comfort they receive in return.
Think about it, the passengers in our bus had all purchased the cheapest tickets, but their lives somehow were getting more expensive as the journey wore on. You could see by the food they were eating, as well as the blankets they covered themselves with as the night got colder. I am pretty sure by the time they reached their destinations they would have to purchase some medication for whatever ailments they would have attained due to the uncomfortable travel. Those who preferred heavier stuff might have to spend on copious amounts of alcohol when they reach their destinations to cope with the stress, calm themselves down.
It was at that moment that I realised that the cheapest ticket had suddenly become the most expensive decision I had ever made. Even a flight ticket would have been cheaper than the nightmare that kept on unfolding.
And that is how cheap becomes expensive! Cheap, clearly, is expensive in this world of inequalities!
But here is the thing, no matter how much I wished the previous incident would disappear, I knew I still had to answer to my fuming wife. But where would I start? My mind was (and still is) clattered, and everything was in a state of disorder.
See, Thulsie and I had far more history than a mere steamy hug on a Johannesburg “playground”. I am not sure if telling my wife these other parts of my life with Thulsie would ever be helpful.
I remember when Thulsie first visited and slept over at my place. It had taken so much persuasion and enticements to get her to come over. I do not know if she yielded due to my crafty words, or she always wanted to visit but had to play hard to get.
And finally, there was Thulsie on my bed with me. Her body was really, really warm – scratch that out; her body was HOT! And tender, yet at the same time firm. With our naked bodies touching for the first time that steamy November Friday night, I was warmly and steadily welcomed into a new amazing life between her smooth thighs and, from then on, I knew there was no turning back.
But as soon as it all began, it was all over! Done! Oh, what a cheap shot from me! A whole 1.84metres-tall man, with a strong body many kilograms above the average man on the street, and there I was totally flattened by a pint-sized – and, in my defence, hottest – woman. Shame on you, Mr “woman-magnet”! Shame on you, sir!
To hide away the embarrassment of a man I had just delivered, I softly explained to Thulsie that her limitless beauty and sexiness had totally overwhelmed me, as such I was rendered powerless to journey with her the entire mile that she might have expected and hoped for. I do not even know why I explained, perhaps I should have just kept quiet and tried to make up for my poor delivery later.
Caressing my beard, Thulsie smiled gently and seemed to be understanding. With a kiss on my lips, I managed to relax. Oh, the fellow with the sweetest tongued in town had won yet again!
Now, sitting in that uncomfortable bus seat, squashed in, my mind rushed back to the drama that had ensued at the park station as soon as I freed Thulsie from my arms. My wife’s eyes had remarkably turned from lovingly clear to teary red, her face from affectionately warm to something I can never put in words.
It is what my wife did next which flipped the already tense situation to a whole new level. When she put her hand in her handbag, I obviously expected a tissue to, like the lady she always was, address her waterfall of tears and the public humiliation she had just suffered.
For a second or two, I got distracted by the noisy crowd, some of whom had been drawn by the commotion, plus the constant nagging trolley-men who offered to help with our heavy bags “at a small fee”. But as soon as I turned to my wife again, it dawned to me that she was taking neither tissue nor handkerchief out of her bag. In her right hand was the famously brown okapi-folding-knife. Her left hand quickly joined the party as she used it to unfold the knife from its normal [safe] folded position.
This was the first time I had ever seen my wife carrying such a knife. I had never imagined her with a knife, besides kitchen knives, let alone threatening to use it against anyone. Even more, an okapi!
It dawned to me that two things were possible: Either I knew nothing about my wife or there was another side I was completely blank about. Perhaps even more unknown sides.
“You cheat on me with this cheap floozy, and you humiliate me!” I think those were some of the words she splattered out. Those were scary words I never thought she would ever say to me, but that was not the scariest part because her raging tearful face spoke far more than whatever she had said with her mouth.
“You are prepared to lose your entire family just for this little, cheap street slut?”, she raged on. “You see now, your easy meat has just destroyed everything of high value you ever had!”
Oh!
I have got to say, I was not particularly pleased with her reference to Thulsie as “cheap” and all the other words she used against her. Of course, with a family which has given me much needed stability and growth over the years, a warm home with a strong supportive wife, I sure had it good, but to call Thulsie “cheap”, come on now, it surely cannot be proper. Or am I now choosing the wrong “cheap” side over my family?
Everything was unfolding too quickly. As soon as the okapi was up in the air, I quickly jumped to shield Thulsie, who had immediately transformed from “pantsula” to “girly” while my wife had made the opposite transformation: from a sweet prayerful lady to going full gangster! But then I quickly realised that, in fact, I was the accused person here, not Thulsie. As such, I had to also save myself from my wife’s wrath. And then as quickly as I had reconciled myself with that fact, I again remembered that it was Thulsie who had been called “cheap floozy,” not me, and that, having studied womenfolk, the betrayed loving woman often attacks the “cheap floozy” and rarely, if ever, the guilty husband.
If you thought that was the most shocking and scariest moment of my life, your imagination is about to be stretched beyond its limits. What happened thereafter would leave me with even more questions than answers, more confusion than clarity. But how could I explain all that which had just happened when my wife was already at war? If only she could just give me a chance to explain!
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*Continues from I CAN EXPLAIN
Picture courtesy: https://jewel-cafe.my/column/distinguish-real-or-fake-gold/
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