Carol’s Column

I’m loo-sing out on the new SA

It arrived about three weeks ago. A narrow upright rectangular structure perched on the pavement at the corner of our garden.

Which was distressing was the fact that to keep in tune with the reforms sweeping the land, I’d recently given the pavement a facelift and planted luxuriant ivy and groundcover, several shrubs and cannas.

Where the pavement curved gently, I’d left a sweeping stretch of lawn and it was on this lawn that the red construction squatted.

I first noticed it as I wheezed around the block on my early morning jog. I adjusted my contact lenses and inspected the object closely. In large letters on the door was printed “Jetomatic Toilet Hire Company”.

“You won’t believe this,” I puffed to my little family who were busy chomping away on their energy-giving snap, crackle and pops, “there’s a toilet on our pavement”.

“Perhaps someone’s lost it,” said Nicky.

The following day the mystery of the solitary toilet was alleviated when a gang of municipality workers arrived to lay new curb stones.

On Friday night we were having dinner when one of our guests, David Issroff, twitched his nostrils, then splayed them and inhaled. I noticed him surreptitiously lower his nose to within testing distance of his dinner.

“Something smells strange,” he remarked tactfully. Momentarily everyone looked embarrassed and then, as a group, our snouts sniffed.

There was indeed a most horrible odour in the air.

Following the smell, we sniffed our way to the corner of the garden.

There, disaster had struck. Either the wind or something else had blown too strongly, for the red toilet was on its side with its contents strewn over the grassy pavement. It did not smell nice.

I phoned the cleansing department emergency number. “There is an overturned toilet on my pavement,” I explained to the cleansing man.

“So straighten it,” he replied.

I explained the predicament.

“Sorry, lady,” he replied. “The toilet is not our responsibility. It belongs to the engineering department. You won’t be able to do anything until Monday.”

“Do you mean to say we have to live with this horrible pong for the weekend, not to mention all the things scattered on the pavement lawn?” I wailed.

“Look at it this way, lady, your lawn will be well fertilised. And for free,” he chortled.

The toilet remained in a reclining position until Wednesday morning when it was again placed upright. By now the smell had worsened and the municipal workers were at the bottom of the road, at least half a kilometre away.

The toilet was abandoned.

I made seven calls to the City Engineer’s Department and was shunted from department to department as various people disclaimed responsibility for the pongacious portable pissoir.

It’s not that they were unsympathetic — “Hold on, sweetie,” they’d say. And then to someone else: “Daar’s a vroumens wat sê daar is stront op haar grasperk.” The problem was, it seemed no one was willing to lay claim to the toilet or its contents, let alone remove them.

Slowly, we are being asphyxiated and sadly, all the cannas in the vicinity of the lavatory have died.

On Thursday, President de Klerk announced the lifting of the state of emergency, other than in Natal. “We have to normalise the situation in South Africa,” he said.

I sympathise for I know exactly how he feels.

We have to normalise the situation, for indeed something is rotten in the state of Parkwood.

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