YOU’RE a red-blooded Zululand male – fearless proprietor of the highly venomous trouser snake.
You think on your feet and the results are immediate and almost always satisfactory.
However, somewhere in your three-legged, hands-free existence, you will be standing in front of the feminine hygiene section in the supermarket, and you’ll panic.
It might be a girlfriend or wife, a daughter or just a close friend who trusts you and needs your help.
And help her you will, because for a woman the only thing more embarrassing than having an emergency is asking for assistance.
So there you are, in that part of the supermarket where you’ve never been before, trying to look casual and relaxed, but you’re not.
In fact, you are as nervous as a shoplifter and must be looking like one too, because the security guard is watching your every move from the cough syrup shelf .
Now, which of the myriad of boxes and packets is the one she needs?
You stand there, baffled, because you didn’t know that such variety in this department existed, but then again, women come in all shapes in sizes, so it makes sense.
Shall it be the ones looking like that cotton tube the dentist had you bite down on when you had that tooth pulled, or must it be the ones looking like a little riding saddle for a miniature Dobermann pinscher?
Because it’s such a personal issue, she was as vague as the brakes on a beach buggy you once owned, so you don’t have a clue and just stand there, where you don’t want to be, staring at what feels a crime to stare at.
And all the time the security guard is staring at you.
Eventually the pressure gets too much, so you decide to bite the bullet and take the box with the daisies.
It says ‘LIGHT FLOW’, and she’s quite petite and weighs very little, so it must be the right stuff.
At the pay point, falling into the queue, you try and hide the little purple box with its pink flower prints behind your legs, which makes the security guard (still on your trail) excited.
You grab some sweets and other stuff which you don’t actually need, just to not make it look like you didn’t come shopping for that one odd thing, and when it’s your turn to pay, you chuck all of it on the counter in a heap and hope the small purple box lands underneath the Inside Story chocolates, but of course it doesn’t.
As blood flows slowly from your face as you drive home – your complexion returning back to normal from the embarrassed bright red it was, you start getting your confidence back.
‘I did well,’ you tell yourself. I kept my cool and made the right choice under pressure.’
But when you deliver the top secret package to the damsel in distress, instead of looking at you like a war hero returning from battle, she looks disappointed and asks: ‘Do I look LIGHT to you?’
Don’t answer…
