Rant of the Day: Have a Nice Day. (Not)

Dear Small-Minded Bigot driving a Mercedes,

You picked the wrong person, on the wrong day, lady.

I was more than comfortable driving just less than 130km/h on the Krugersdorp highway this morning. And yes, I was in the fast lane, because that’s the speed most of us do in the fast lane. It’s faster than the limit, but just slow enough to stay out of trouble. But you came along, pig-headed and self-righteous and had a cadenza that I wasn’t driving in the “slow” lane.

Imagine that. I don’t want to drive in the slow lane, getting stuck behind those who prefer to travel at 90km/h, so that idiots like you can go… ooooh, what, 140km/h??

So you veered around me on the left and made a scene about it. Oh I hope you’re regretting that now.

I let you get ahead a little. For a short while, let you bask in how “right” you were to put me in my place. But it gave me pinch of pleasure when just touching the accelerator of my modest Toyota brought me more than up to speed with you. Funny how it is when the tables turn… what, you don’t want to drive 200km/h???! WELL I DO, SO GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!

No you wouldn’t do that, and I’m not one to overtake on the left. That would be pig-headed.

See, you don’t know me, lady. You don’t know that I didn’t get any sleep last night. You don’t know my heart’s aches, the frustrations I’m facing, the demons I fight every day. You don’t know that I’m listening to my heaviest metal today to try calm me down. You don’t know that I’m a psychopath with a handgun beneath my seat and I’m waiting for someone like you to push me… Just. Too. Far.

I’m not a psychopath, but you don’t know that.

It gave me a much bigger pinch of pleasure that my route to work allowed me to follow you for a good long while. That I could follow you closely, imitating your every manoeuvre, all the while staying just close enough to glare at you in your review mirror. I was glad to see that at the four-way stop, you left a massive gap in front of you and that you accelerated for all your million-rand car was worth to get some space between us. I hope you were afraid. Oh I do hope so.

More than anything, I hope you will think twice before you are such a bully to someone else on the road, someone you don’t know.

You probably won’t change, but one can hope.

Ok. I’m over it.

You have a nice day now. 

All the Small Things

What happens when you push yourself, and stop listening to the subtle messages that your body sends you to "stop"?

You land up in hospital for eight days, followed by an order to take up bed-rest thereafter.

Well, maybe not for everyone, but that's what happened to me a few weeks ago. At 32 weeks pregnant, I finally crashed and burned one Sunday, and we made a hasty trip to the maternity ward to discover that I was in preterm labour. Long story short... I am now 35 weeks pregnant (phew!) and on strict orders to rest, with baby girl growing healthy and stronger every day.

Thing is, when you find yourself stuck in a place like a hospital (or a prison, I imagine) unexpectedly, with all your personal comforts suddenly taken from you, you come to appreciate all the small things (and some big things) that you didn't even think twice about beforehand. As if life somehow owes you those things upfront, like oxygen and sustenance. During my eight days incarceration, and on the day of my homecoming, I came up with a list of things that I will never again take for granted, some of which I thought to share....

Tweezers. A week in hospital without tweezers, and I closely resembled the hairy James P. Sullivan from Monsters Inc. This was my first act of homecoming - to re-shape my eyebrows and sigh in satisfaction at the mirror. Followed by a gloriously close shave with a non-disposable razor... It was heavenly.

James P. Sullivan, AKA "Sully" - Monsters Inc.

Yep that's what I looked like, don't judge me.

Music. There is no music in hospital. The nurse's badly-chosen ringtone does not count. I eventually figured out that if I kept the TV above me on, tuned to a movie channel, I could catch the ten minutes of music played during every movie credit roll. Yes, I actually did this, such was my desperation. I watched a lot of junk for those ten minutes...
On my homecoming, I put on a favourite music album... and nearly cried for the beauty of it.

The smell of home. You know what I mean - that mixture of scents and fragrances that you know as yours, almost as though you and your loved ones have unintentionally marked this territory as 'home'. On the day of my return from hospital, I came into the house via the garage. It smelled of my husband's greasy rags and the petrol lawnmower. I took a deep, desperate-for-more breath - it was the scent of "welcome home".

Waking up with someone you know and love. Poking my husband for snoring, fighting over bed space, listening to him breathing... what a joy to wake up next to him every morning.

The Silences. A familiar wind rustling familiar leaves just outside my very own window. The hum of my own ceiling fan, and the creepy house-noises I've come to recognize. Strictly speaking, these are sounds, not silences, but after eight days of trolleys, beeping machines, and clanging trays... these are the sounds of Silence.

My breakfast ritual. One WeetBix stick. A dessert spoon of whole linseeds. Two dessert spoons of All-Bran flakes. One sliced banana. Loads of milk. Yum, and a very happy tummy... I've realized that I am such a creature of habit - I missed my daily breakfast so much that I actually had it for lunch on my first day back home.

Normal chatter. However well-meaning it may be, "How are you feeling?" becomes a tiresome topic of discussion. I feel tired and sore and scared and annoyed to be in hospital. But I don't want to get you down, so I'm going to smile and and say "Oh fine, better than yesterday". Since being back home, normal small-talk has been resumed. So-and-so's dog's strange behaviour. What's-his-name's new Christmas tree. The latest specials at Pick n Pay. It's La-di-da's birthday today, did you wish him? Tell me something, anything. It all matters, no matter how mundane.

Variety. I came home, and desperately wanted to be in every room of the house, all at once. From being confined to one bed and a drip all week,  I wanted to sit and breathe in the languid stillness of the bedroom; flop onto the horribly uncomfortable lounge couch; prepare tea in the homely mess of our sprawled-out kitchen; sniff the towels in the bathroom that smell of showers and fresh soap...


In a nutshell, it is great to be home. There's no place like it. You should think about your life, your home, your loved ones, your little habits, your surroundings... and take the time to enjoy them. When I got married, my amazing, wise brother gave me the best advice about my wedding day: he said, "Stop often. Look around, listen, and just take some time to enjoy that moment of your wedding day. Otherwise, it will go so fast, you won't remember anything."

The same could be said of life in general: Stop often. Look around, listen and take some time to enjoy that moment of your life. Do it, fellow inhabitants of this planet. You will regret missing all the small things in life far more than wasting a few moments to experience it.