Carol’s Column

Wish list for the new millennium

We galloped into the new millennium with the enemy Y2K bug hot on our heels. And what happened? When we looked round, it wasn't there.

Did it ever exist?

Somebody, in fact, millions of bodies out there made a lot of Y2K scare money.

During the last first democratic election, thousands of apprehensive citizens stocked their cupboards with canned foods, powdered milk and enough provisions to keep them going for months on end.

They were convinced that on election day, there would be bloodshed and chaos throughout South Africa.

Well, as we all know, it didn't happen and apparently the inhabitants of those households are today still dining on their pre-election stores of canned pilchards and baked beans.

Again, as the past century came to its end, thousands rushed out to buy food, torches, bottled water and other emergency survival supplies. And again, the world did not close shop.

"It doesn't matter," said my Aunty Lily philosophically as she surveyed her pantry filled with cans.

"Better safe than sorry." She is 87 and has always been cautious.

For instance, she only smokes 10 cigarettes a day (cutting down from 50) and recently cut down to one medicinal sherry at night, instead of three.

"I have to look after my health," she says.

Always enterprising, she decided to hold a "markdown" garage sale for all the canned goods she acquired.

Any money she made, she would donate to the Save the Arachnid Fund, said Aunty Lily.

Everything was marked 50c and she painted a large notice to that effect.

Naturally, there was a complete sell out and all went well until somebody arrived at the garage with a pick-up truck.

"The notice says 'Everything is going for 50c'," said the burly young man attempting to hook up her car, "so legally speaking this car is being sold for 50c."

He hadn't realised that in her time, (1923) Aunty Lily was the women's karate champion of Stellenbosch.

Like greased lightning, she kicked him on the chin then felled him with a chop on the neck.

I haven't seen an octogenarian move so speedily for years, except my mother at a half-price underwear sale.

It will suffice to say that Aunty Lily's car remained in the garage unlike the would-be 50c car purchaser who, when he recovered, was commanded to leave at once.

Meanwhile, to get back to the new millennium.

Perusal of newspapers, magazines and TV has revealed that everyone has a selection of wishes. Me, too, also.

In this new millennium I want plastic shrink-wrap abolished especially on things impossible to open such as toothbrush packages or bottled foods. In the last few days of the last century I broke my two front teeth attempting to open a sealed bottle of chutney.

In the new millennium, I want to be able to buy a spoke for a wheel instead of the whole bicycle. I want to be able to buy a ball for a computer mouse not a complete mouse, a piece of petrol filter instead of the whole unit, one false tooth instead of a set.

I want to do all the things I didn't get around to in the last century.

Learn to fly, play the flute, sing rap, speak Xhosa, cook edible mopani worms, have my legs stretched and my ears pinned back so they no longer stick out at right angles.

I want to build a tiny pondokie on a remote piece of beach and sleep without having to lock windows and doors.

Most of all, I want to be a wild wind, not a wet fog.

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