Carol’s Column

Just keep the braai smoke off the TV screen

What a euphorious - to quote the State President - week.

Personally, I lost three kilograms. Two dropped off last Sunday while watching the nail-biting, adrenalin-rising cricket. Oh, the joy and the ecstasy when Kepler and the boys beat India.

Everyone was shouting and screaming and cheering until our neighbour, 84-year-old Horace Capesmith, in the excitement of the moment, swallowed his false teeth.

Alack, we were making such a racket that we didn't hear him choking away in the corner.

It was only when he dropped to the floor and gurgled, his face bluish, that we realised all was not well.

My husband, always speedy in a crisis, quickly picked him up, flipped him upside down and shook him. Out fell the offending teeth and Horace began to breathe again.

"I nearly died," he wheezed, "but what a way to go."

Then came Tuesday and the referendum. I stood in a queue doing my thing with 2 799 804 other as-white-as-driven-snow South Africans. Humour flowed.

"This referendum is the only way that F W could get 15 million blacks to pray for him," said one wit.

The elderly couple in front of me hadn't voted before. "We didn't feel it necessary," said the husband, his accent thick Lithuanian.

Interjected his wife, "So, Nelson Mandela has a strong suntan. A suntan is attractive and anyway, a black president is better than having a bunch of Nazis governing us." The people standing in the queue cheered. "Besides, Eugene TerreBlanche froths when he talks. Now how can you take a man who froths when he talks seriously?" They nodded in agreement.

"Anyway, who says Mandela will be president? What about De Klerkie or even Yvonne Chaka Chaka?" said someone else. "Stranger things could happen. This is the new South Africa."

"Sol Kerzner for president," shouted somebody in the rear.

"Cyril Ramaphosa's better looking," yelled someone else.

Meanwhile, the couple ahead of me were having a problem.

"So how did you say I must fill in the form?" she said.

"With the pencil," he answered. "Just tick the big top box and don't sign it 'with love from Sadie' like you usually do, otherwise you'll spoil your vote."

They shuffled forward, doing their little bit to help the reform process come about. On such foundations is true history made.

My third kilo was shed when the results were announced. I haven't felt as happy as this since I bought my electric tin opener.

In comparison, the Budget was virtually a non-event. Anyway, who could think of the Budget when there was the World Cup semi-final coming up?

Naturally, I have prepared for the occasion. We moved the fridge and the TV out on to the stoep. Stocked it - the fridge, not the TV - with beers and orange juice.

I marinated the wors and positioned the braai so that even if the wind comes up, the smoke won't obscure the TV screen.

This is Africa at its wildest.

And, at this very moment, I'm sipping orange juice, crunching boerewors and losing another two kilos in anxiety while our cricketers play.

Life is tough in the front line.

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