We’re breaking records, fam, and this time its not the efffing 400m spectacular by Wayde van Niekerk. Let’s play that one on repeat, shall we? Instead, we are stuck in some new level of hell with our sanity running away faster than van Niekerk ever could.
South Africa (14 June 2020) – Kim Nicola Stephens is fast becoming our favourite author during South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown… and she has just served up another gem!
She has given us the top 10 middle-class quarantine categories, a hilarious depiction of how confusing level 4 actually is, the beauty truths of the burbs during the lockdown, the runners versus smokers debacle and now she weighs in (hilariously) on reaching 80 days of lockdown in South Africa.
South Africans have a way of getting through the toughest times, usually with a side dish of humour, and these quarantine categories might just be the funniest thing you will read today!
Kim has permitted us to post the piece on Good Things Guy, and we hope you enjoy the brilliant humour.
Around the Bend in 80 Days…
80. Fucking. Days… since South Africa prepared for a 21-day stint of strict lockdown which was proposed as a means to curb the COVID-Curve. And perhaps it has, and I don’t want to think about the alternative, but here we still are.
We’re breaking records, fam, and this time its not the fucking 400m spectacular by Wayde van Niekerk. Let’s play that one on repeat, shall we? Instead, we are stuck in some new level of hell with our sanity running away faster than van Niekerk ever could.
We have more than 65 000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 here in no-longer-sunny SA. More than 40 000 of which are from the Western Cape (so is Wayde van Niekerk, we fucking love winning), but there is a backlog of more than 100 000 test results, most of which are not from the Western Cape. So the provincial breakdown and overall statistics are about as clear as the Mankading rule in cricket.
What does seem clear, is that we have lost almost 1 500 lives to Covid-19, as of today. 101 days since some arsehole came back to Cape Town from a little stint in Europe and fucked us all. The mortality rate is 2.2%, and we have a 56% recovery rate. Hospitals are busy, front line workers are taking strain in certain hospitals, and although we don’t have refrigeration trucks lined up outside our medical care facilities, or the mass graves of New York City, we have been warned that our peak is yet to come. It could be argued that the Western Cape is reaching peak ahead of the curve, but no one actually knows, and now that we can run on the mountain and get the fuck off the prom, it might calm down a little over here.
Surfers are back in the water, too. Middle finger to the lockdown laws, and a welcome one at that. Those okes needed a salty bath and a rinse of their dreadlocks.
Apparently you can also dust off your golf clubs. Five seconds ago, there was a media report outlining how 50% of our golf courses were set to close permanently. How to toy with middle-class emotions! I’m personally quite stoked that the great hobby of the patriarchy is being reinstated. Walking my dogs in the local park was becoming a fucking death wish as frustrated golfers repeatedly escaped their wives to smack small hard balls around. Did you know, substantially more people die on golf courses than rugby fields every year? Everyone is a statistician now, even me.
Speaking of rugby, this weekend New Zealand presented its Ultimate World Cup Revenge. Live rugby, mask-free crowds, and they were like “suck on this, South Africa”. While we assholes suck on cloth masks and attempt a virtual Comrades Marathon. Sporting greats, my arse. We’re bottom-feeding now, fam. Not even Jonty Rhodes can save this one.
The kids are going back to school. Half at a time, masks on, temps taken, no uniforms and no sport. Every time I see one of these little heroes with their lockdown haircuts walking into a school gate I think, fuck, we really did a number on this generation. And then I smile inside and celebrate the prospect of a break in homeschooling.
We’re probably overdue a presidential address. If CR popped up live in a Springbok jersey with a shiny trophy held aloft announcing South Africa’s lockdown world record, I wouldn’t be a tiny bit surprised. Nothing shocks us anymore. Not R2000 for a carton of cigarettes, not the fucking mess that our education system presents, not even Foresters Arms, a Cape icon since 1852, becoming a drive through pub. We don’t actually need drive through pubs because everyone panicked their tits off last week and bought enough booze to get us to Christmas.
Hold tight, gang. This must eventually end.
Words by me, Kim Stephens. I really miss a Saturday morning watching schoolboy rugby, followed by lunch at Forries. Fuck Cele, and also, fuck New Zealand. Fucking childish.