It’s day eleven seventy thousand, and the lockdown categories have changed. So a re-write is about as overdue as a presidential address and your wax appointment.
South Africa (3 May 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 with Level 4 South Africa divided into 10 quarantine categories!
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 she weighed in (hilariously) about how everyone in South Africa has suddenly become an expert on nearly everything.
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.
Level 4 South Africa divided into 10 quarantine categories
It’s day eleven seventy thousand, and the lockdown categories have changed. So a re-write is about as overdue as a presidential address and your wax appointment.
Middle-class South Africa in Lockdown Level Four can now be categorised as follows:
1. The Early Adapters
She trains daily from 7 to 8, outdoors on the designated roads within a 5km radius of home. She has her husband walk the dogs, with kids on bikes, from 8 to 9, during which time she showers, prepares banana flapjacks, puts a load of washing on and sets up the homeschooling stations. Her kids get their school work done under her scrutiny between 9:30 am and noon, while her husband is banished to the study to “save the god damn economy, you lazy bastard”. She does her own work, and checks global Covid-19 stats, after a delicious lunch featuring her home-grown veggies and herbs. She has the family packing food care parcels for the poor before evening boardgames and cocoa in the lounge. She has a secret stash of gin in her underwear drawer. Do not tell the lazy bastard! Self-sufficient as fuck, and voted least likely to contract Covid-19, or remain married during Level One.
2. The Antagonists
Never bothered a day in their lives about human rights or inequality, but now they can’t surf / paddle / swim / smoke / buy beer / get a pre-cooked woollies chicken / bring their domestic back to work, so they are PISSED OFF AT THE GOVERNMENT. They are making placards and signing petitions and inviting everyone to join their Facebook community groups. They look like chops while being chased on beaches in designer running kit, and they are trying to overthrow our esteemed leadership through yoga workouts on the boardwalk. They are calling the manager! They either need to read Long Walk to Freedom or find a decent YouTube tutorial on making explosives. Instead, they are adding glitter to their placards to “make it pop” at the protest. Fml.
3. The Denialists
They say things like “when its back to normal” a lot. They email the school twice a week to find out when their children will return, and they still can’t understand why sitting in a restaurant / picnicking on the beach / visiting an elderly family member / organising a play date isn’t allowed. They pay their gym memberships. They think masks are silly and that everyone is overreacting. Voted most likely to get Covid-19 and / or end up in jail. Stay the fuck at home, Susan.
4. The Conspiracy Theorists
They are multiplying. Everything is propaganda, all mainstream media is fake, the stats are wrong, they won’t get a fucking vaccine when China releases it, and Bill Gates is the devil. It doesn’t matter how the virus started, Curt, it’s fucking real and taking actual lives and that dumbass video isn’t helping anyone! Voted second most likely to get Covid-19 and will definitely end up in jail. Put your fucking mask back on, if only to shut you up, and watch some CNN.
5. The Capitalists
They don’t give a fuck how many people die; they just need to go back to work now. NOW! Calm down, Clive put your grim reaper sickle away and find the middle ground.
6. The Ex-Philosophers
They have stopped telling us that Covid-19 came to save our souls and they are creating an emergency bunker at home, filled with freeze-dried meals and pineapple moonshine. Welcome to the party, Arnold. There are a couple of Facebook posts you might want to delete – they did not age well.
7. The Thugs
No one knows what they used to do for a living, but they are living their best lives now. Running delivery of cigarettes, illicit booze and professional hair colour packs throughout the burbs, they are the new McDonald Happy Meals. Everyone is loving them, and they are printing the kind of cash that SARS will never fucking see. If you see someone who can still afford a full Woolies trolley mid-month, hit them up for a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. The Suburban Thug Life is born.
8. The Opportunists
They live quite similarly to the suburban thugs, but this crew won’t go to jail. They flipped their factories upside down faster than Cele could fuck up our freedom. They are making masks and bottling hand sanitiser in their garages. They took their soccer mom SUVs and turned them into delivery vehicles. They are running mask deliveries, veggie box drops, fresh eggs, fertiliser, fucking anything that Level Four allows, and some borderline stuff too. They had their permits laminated before Cyril had taken the mask off his eyes, and they are coming out of this shit storm THRIVING. Karen needs to take notes.
9. The Snitches
Guys, save your breath for something that MATTERS, like a garage selling hot pies in Level Four. If your neighbour can’t get inside their gate by 9 am because their dog has wrapped its lead around a pole 20m from home, don’t call the flying squad. You also don’t need to know where Sally next door got the cigarette she is puffing on in her backyard, just because you saw that she said on Facebook that she had the last of her tobacco a week ago. You need to calm down, Angela, and just breathe. Fairly likely to get Covid-19 because someone is going to give it to them on purpose.
10. The “I Told You So” Wankers
Yeah, you predicted this in 2007, I heard you. You also KNEW that the ANC had an agenda, the lockdown would basically never end and Eskom was in on this bullshit too. You wrote that, in your fucking diary. You have a bunker room; you built it in 2010. You told us that we would be punished for our extreme, hedonistic ways and NOW LOOK. You need to fuck off into your bunker, bru. My ways were not hedonistic, and your diary is the sort of thing that might happen if the SABC and Fox News had a kid.
Words by me, Kim Stephens. I don’t know what category I fall in to, or what is coming next. But I sincerely adore The Thugs.
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