After almost 2 years of dealing with the pandemic, Kim Nicola Stephens has updated her original list of middle-class suburbia lockdown categories (to bring them into 2022)… and it hits the nail on the head while being incredibly funny.
South Africa (08 March 2022) – Kim Nicola Stephens – one of our favourite writers in South Africa – has really helped South Africa deal with the trauma of the past year with humour, and we love that she is keeping it up in 2022, bringing us more middle-class South African humour!
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.
We even got to interview her, which you can listen to here:
South Africans have a way of getting through the toughest times, usually with a side dish of humour, and her writing is on point.
Kim has permitted us to post her latest piece on Good Things Guy, and we hope you enjoy the brilliant humour.
The 8 Middle-Class South Africans… Coming Out of Lockdown!
Okay, it’s time. After more than 700 days of lockdown on various levels, middle-class South Africa is emerging in the following categories.
(Disclaimer: I write this stuff, for a laugh, and to laugh at myself, and no I don’t have a degree in political science OR any kind of medical qualification, but most of you don’t either, so sit down.)
1. The Crisis Addict
He is so attached to the pandemic that he doesn’t know how to live, laugh, love without some kind of emergency situation playing out. He talks incessantly about fuel prices, food prices and civil war. He over-invested in sanitizer and masks, and he’s been on a waiting list for a gun since the riots broke out in Durban. He doesn’t live in Durban. He has invested in a rooftop solar panel that could solve Eskom’s problems, and he gave away all his shoes other than a pair of combat boots that give him blisters now that he is back in the office in camo. He carries his passport everywhere he goes, and he’s pretty sure the neighbours are engaged in illegal activity at night. He needs a holiday beyond his bunker and a comfy pair of takkies.
2. Nervous Nelly
She’s so far gone with the rules around the pandemic that she has forgotten what her civil rights are. She calls the school each week to check on current mask rules and how many spectators can attend her kid’s gala. She Googles wine trading times 3 times a week. She has X’s painted on her kitchen floor so that the family can maintain social distancing, but Susan next door says it’s because she’s just tired of her husband getting too close. She has locked and loaded a thermometer on the front table, and she has a stash of NHS-issue disposable rapid tests that her sister brought out from the UK when they finally got her here in January. She calls ahead whenever she books a table at a restaurant to check if they are still operational and what their ventilation is like. She needs a hug, but you won’t get that close to her.
3. The Rager
He’s still angry. He hates the mask rules in shopping centers, and the vein above his left eye bulges when the Checkers people spray his hands. He’s still asking about the R500 billion in aid that went missing around level 4. He rages about the economic impact of lockdown while he drinks his profits at the local on a Friday evening. Every time he walks past the rotisserie chickens at Woolies, he reminds his wife / kid / anyone who will listen how useless our government is and how mad our lockdown laws were. He wants to shake your hand just so that he can tell you what he thinks of fist bumps and elbow taps. He fucking hates those.
4. The Adapters
They’ve emerged unscathed. Vaxed, relaxed and ready for the next round. They have fully operational home offices and homeschooling systems; they downscaled to one car and negotiated a permanent work-from-home agreement. Their veggie garden now supplies 62% of the family’s micronutrients. They are considering leaving Cape Town or Jozi to live, laugh, love in a small coastal town, but they are checking on private healthcare in the vicinity first. They don’t need much, but a weekend away with the dogs would be nice.
5. The Conspiracy Theorists
They are STILL at it; I can’t cope with this crew. They have shifted from a firm belief that the pandemic was a fictional story designed to control the world and scare us into getting vaccines that will turn us into zombies by 2024 to a narrative around the pandemic being a planned rollout that was designed to precede world war 3. Their foil hats are rusty as hell, but they’re all still out there making nanas of themselves. They need a time out urgently.
6. The Switch Offs
They turned off the news around June of 2020, and they’re not going back. If the world is going to blow, they don’t want to know. They share pictures of puppies, and they choose to believe that their favourite restaurants are just closed for renovations. They get a sore throat and treat it with essential oils and rooibos tea. They haven’t heard of Zelensky, but to be fair, they never knew a thing about The Hard Livings, The Americans or any of the conflict happening closer to home, either. Best to leave them be, we can’t all be angry and stressed out all the time, and we need someone to keep up the flow of puppy sharing.
7. The Germaphobe
This thing has done our heads in, really it has. The germaphobe wipes EVERYTHING. Her hands are raw from handwashing, and she can’t believe she ever used a public toilet in the past. She would rather stick a hot poker in her eyeball than walk through a bustling mall, and her family all wear masks at home to reduce the risk of Jik inhalation. She takes her own utensils to a restaurant and hauls out alcohol swabs to disinfect all cups and glasses. She has a home water-testing kit, everyone leaves their shoes at the door, and she has the symptoms and treatment of every kind of Covid variant taped to her fridge. I need friends like her to help me sort out my cupboards.
Anyway…
Well done to us, to every single one who is managing a life in the wake of a truly strange time.
Many have lost more than most can imagine, so if you’re still able to have a laugh, I salute you. If you can live, laugh, love, you’re fucking amazing. We have to keep holding on, and stockpiling wine, and figuring out how life works from here. It’s going to be okay if we let it.
Words by me, Kim Stephens. I’m a little bit of everything; all rolled into one.
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