If you thought those hovering SANDF helicopters were disconcerting, wait until you experience the collective angst of 7 million tobacco addicts going cold turkey.
South Africa (29 April 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 and now the talented writer is giving us an idea of what might happen if cigarettes don’t go on sale soon!
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.
Lockdown level 4 – its runners versus smokers!
Woooah. So who saw that one coming?
Last week it was the runners who had a bit of a semi which was promptly deflated by a conflicting statement, and this week it’s the smokers! The gangs on the Flats have called a temporary truce during the lockdown, but the runners vs smokers war has just kicked up a gear.
Is it down to how many digital signatures each group can muster? Do those petition things actually work? Is it because Bruce Fordyce said something? Why can’t smokers get the afternoon slot, when runners and dog walkers are at home policing each other on STRAVA?
Where are all those visiting Cuban doctors going to get their cigars? Fuck.
Look, I’m not a smoker, haven’t been for many moons, but I’m worried. It’s not just that British American Tobacco South Africa alone pays in excess of R14.5 billion in tax revenue in a single year; I have other more pressing concerns. If you thought those hovering fucking SANDF helicopters were disconcerting, wait until you experience the collective angst of 7 million tobacco addicts going cold turkey.
That trolley being rammed into your Achilles tendon in the frozen food (is that still allowed?) aisle at Spar has nothing to do with Angela’s menopause, and everything to do with the fact that she can no longer get her Pall Malls, pal. Geoffrey across the road is taking absolutely no shit from anyone, including the Checkers60 delivery guy who was 2.4min later than the app indicated, but it’s really just because Geoff smoked his final box of Benson & Hedges when his lockdown dealer said he could definitely get a carton to see him to Level Four, and then Cele fucked with that plan, and someone went to jail for selling takeaway coffee so the ciggie dealer panicked and Geoff is smoking tea bags.
They are going to drive over us in the streets while we get our 6 to 9 am jogging fix, and we can’t even go out there with a running buddy as back up (no, not even your husband but you look like you need a break from him anyway, just 5km from him, don’t get carried away, Karen! Fucksake).
I don’t know what to suggest for the smokers, although I hear you have some pretty big names backing you. Maybe not as powerful as the mighty blonde mane of I-Will-Cut-You-In-Pinetown Fordyce, but still, Philip Morris might help out.
As for the rest of Level Four clarity: No smoking, no drinking, got a tight-ass curfew, I am laughing at vibrator jokes and doing junior school maths again. So I’m 12, basically.
Words by me Kim Stephens. 6 to 9 am, see you out there. Stay safe and well, and avoid the smokers. And Cele, fuck him.
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