The Credit Crunch Python
2008-10-14 11:10
David Moseley
There's an industrious-looking fellow outside my girlfriend's flat. He's either a conscientious builder who was up very early this morning, or he's just another financially disadvantaged citizen, feeling the Credit Crunch Python's suffocating squeeze. The Credit Crunch Python, by the way, can strike at any time.
Just this last weekend I had to downgrade my tipple of choice from Heineken to Amstel, a saving of R20 per case, friends. I fear next weekend I may have to drink something out of brown bottle. Times are tough indeed.
Anyway, this dude downstairs is quietly filling up his bakkie with bricks from an ongoing building site, casting furtive glances over his shoulder (and those are sure signs of ne'er-do-wells).
So at least someone, somewhere in Cape Town this week will be getting that extra room they've always dreamed of. Ooh, there he goes, looking rather chuffed with himself.
In the spirit of saving and spending prudently we all have to cut back a little on life's luxuries. Or steal someone else's bricks.
And after five years of spendthrift cohabitation, my flat mate and I are finally looking at the prices of the junk we put in our trolley. We didn't even buy NikNaks last month. If Terror makes NikNaks cheaper, he'll get my vote.
This has had a negative effect in our lives, but we roll with the punches. Our newfound parsimony has displeased my previously advantaged domestic worker somewhat. She's insisting that we return the AIM iron we purchased and swop it for a Russell Hobbs model. I told her it that if I have to drink Amstel on the weekends, then she can goddam suck it up and iron with the AIM. She is not amused.
Nevertheless, despite the economic global downturn - I love those catchy financial turns of phrase - there are still some things in life you cannot skimp on. I can live with burn marks on my clothing or having my kitchen floor tiles washed with Sunlight liquid (an underhanded move indeed by the maid. She was so nice to me when I was a kid). I can even go without buying new underpants for a few years, that's just the kind of stoic guy I am.
It must have something to do with my granddad growing up in Glasgow, having 16 different jobs at the age of 12, needing to care for his family of 30 and walking a round trip of 60 miles a day in the snow in no shoes just to buy a lump of coal to heat the kettle to make a shared cup of tea from a five-day old tea bag that made me the survivor of hard times that I am today.
But I will not - cannot - compromise on two things; red wine and toilet paper. A life without good red wine and plush, soft as angel's hair toilet roll is a life not worth living.
Take my car, Mr Bank Manager; I shall brave the Metrorail. Take my golf clubs; I can't keep it on the fairway anyway. Have my house you one percent above prime-lending bastards; I already have my Checkers trolley packed with blankets, tinned goods, scrap metal and a mangy township dog.
But take my two-ply with puppies on and you'll have a fight on your hands. Glance in the direction of my Andreas Shiraz and you'll know what it feels like to get plugged with a cork. Oh, and condoms. If it's not Durex, I'm not having sex. And mountain bike shirts. The good ones are guaranteed to make you 20% faster. Guaranteed.
News update: The builders have arrived downstairs and are looking mightily perplexed at their diminished supply of bricks. I could tell them what's going on, but it's a breezy day in Cape Town and not conducive to quality brick-laying.
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