There was a time when many South African restaurants did not have soup on their menus. Those who did would remove it come summer. This makes about as much sense as not offering ice cream in the winter. In the irate words of Sihayo, my lastborn, when he was in grade 3: “Every time mama is feeling cold, she dresses me in a vest under my shirt."
I remember one sweltering January afternoon having an exploratory meeting with a prospective client in a Midrand eatery. When I asked what soups they had, the waiter looked at me as though I’d just ordered pork belly in an Islamabad restaurant. So, I asked him to bring me a mug of boiling water instead. I whipped out a packet of chicken noodle Cup-a-Soup from my man bag, poured it into the water and started seasoning it with the pepper grinder.
My companion looked at me as though I’d just donned a soup bowl as a hat and started flapping my elbows and clucking like a chicken. He leaned in and observed: “I was forewarned about your eccentric ways, but that’s weird even for you.”
Until that fateful afternoon, I was unaware that the “eccentric” descriptor had preceded me. How did I feel about this discovery? Honestly? Nothing. I shrugged and continued sipping my soup imperturbably, sweat pouring down my face. If the shoe fits and all that.
My memory extends all the way to 52 years ago, when I was two. I’ve always been an outsider. Ten-year-olds tend to give a wide berth to mates who spend hours following a garden snail around or handling frogs and earthworms, even when Mr Gatsheni hasn’t asked anyone to bring them to school on Monday for general science class.
Especially when said weirdos are Catholic and they ask questions during catechism, such as: “If there was nothing before the world was created, then where was God staying when He created it?”
Before you start sending me virtual hugs, stop. I really did have a normal childhood, even if most of it happened inside my own head. Innocuous quirks aside, such as washing my hands an average 23 times a day, I think I’m a well-adjusted, if slightly odd, adult.
Raising children often feels like attempting to thread a needle blindfolded, in the dark, during a hurricane
I’ll tell you who was eccentric: Comrade Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution Muammar Gaddafi, the late former leader of Libya. In 2007, he rocked up for a state visit with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy, and pitched a Bedouin tent in the gardens of an official state guesthouse right opposite the Élysée Palace.
To rub salt into the wound, Gaddafi parked a camel outside his tent, and conducted all his meetings there while taking healthy gulps of its milk. As you can see, making one’s own Cup-a-Soup in a restaurant pales in comparison.
Raising children often feels like attempting to thread a needle blindfolded, in the dark, during a hurricane. I’ve been part of many conversations with parents who are sick with worry that their offspring seem to stray towards the unconventional side of life. I have a friend with a bespectacled, socially awkward son who could solve the Rubik’s Cube by age eight. While nowhere near the world record, it’s pretty impressive. The boy is now 13, a mathematical boffin, and insists on going out in public wearing a Dracula cloak.
My advice to my friend? Let the boy be, as long as he’s not wearing fangs and trying to bite people on the neck.
As for me, I have reached an age where I believe I can get away with any strange public behaviour I choose. No-one should be surprised if they see a TikTok doing the rounds featuring yours truly. I have half a mind to rock up to Nelson Mandela Square on an Arabian steed and hitch it to a post before proceeding to take up a seat at one of the fine restaurants there.
To complete the eccentric optic, I will order some camel milk and, when they inevitably tell me they don’t stock it, whip out my own. I am not au fait with Sandton ordinances, but I am curious to find out — from the meter maid who instructs me not to park my horse on the square — what law I will be breaking.
Eccentrics are people too and should be accommodated. This is why I refuse to judge the silver-haired woman I saw enjoying her Bar One using a knife and fork at a Bedfordview café.
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