Carol’s Column

Smiles grow stiff amidst all the goodwill

Oh, what a happy month September will be, for this is the month in which great things are destined to happen. Spring, the elections, Tender Loving Care Day, Friendship Friday, Smile Saturday and Goodwill Sunday. Then, to cap it all, September has been declared Friendship Month.

In fact, talking about tender loving care reminds me of a good friend whose marriage lacked excitement. Concerned, she read a book entitled “How to Keep your Mate”.

“Do something unexpectedly tender and loving,” advocated this worthy tome.

Which is why, after an afternoon of tennis with the girls, she dashed home, stripped, except for her pom-pom socks and takkies, sprayed herself liberally with perfume and waited at the front door for her husband’s return.

On schedule, the doorbell rang and starkers, other than her pom-pom socks and takkies, she flung open the door and leapt into her delighted husband’s arms shrieking tenderly: “I love you.”

However, it was not her husband. It was her mother-in-law who was neither tender, loving nor delighted.

We discussed September at the bookclub meeting. “You know, all this friendship bit is getting me down,” said my good friend Betty. “Take Tender Loving Care Day. The only thing I feel loving towards these days is my electric blanket.”

Marion nodded. “It’s the elections,” she growled darkly, “they don’t put you in a friendly mood.”

Nevertheless, we agreed that in principle, the idea of a Friendship Month was appealing and we decided to start our smiling, goodwilling and friendlying early, to get into training, so to speak.

I arrived home to find a torrent of water gushing out of the door due to the fact that the new downstairs toilet was overflowing, so I phoned the plumber.

“I have a slight problem,” I said in a friendly way with smile in my voice. You could feel the goodwill surging down the line.

The plumber was equally friendly. “Fine, regard your problem solved,” he replied. “I’ll be there at 9 am on Monday, November 13.”

“Monday, November 13,” I gasped in horror.

“Are you suspicious?” he said, “don’t worry, I can make it Tuesday, 14th.”

“That’s two months away,” I yelled, my friendliness evaporating instantly.

“Take it or leave it, lady,” he answered.

A resourceful family, we have cut off the water supply to the house and are renting bath and toilet time from our friendly neighbours the Halls.

But friendliness and goodwill are not easy under some circumstances.

Such as when your car spends four days at the local garage so that the holed exhaust pipe, loose carburettor and blocked petrol pump can be repaired and is returned with a holed exhaust pipe, loose carburettor and blocked petrol pump.

Or when, in the newly-extended playroom, the walls crack, the ceiling collapses and the architect says it’s just the normal settling process.

But, no matter, if not on the home front, nationally, it’s certainly been a week of goodwill. What with a Chinese couple threatened with eviction from their Pretoria home, blacks thrown off white beaches in the Cape, Archbishop Tutu and his colleagues tear-gassed, my smile is getting a little stiff.

And then, to cap a week of joy, was the discovery that the lovable and recently-deceased Granny Lee who was actually a man and not a woman, was also a coloured and not a white and had erroneously been buried in the white instead of the coloured cemetery.

However, there are still four days until September 1, which makes it 14 days to Tender Loving Care Day and I have decided on whom I shall shower my own personal tender loving care.

He’s dark, handsome and caring. If he was State President, he’d scrap the Group Areas and Population Registration Acts, allow mixed swimming and let people die and lie where they wish.

His name is Henry the Hog and he’s the most discerning dog I know.

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