What bugs me

Was it Plato or Socrates who enlightened the world by saying that when it comes to relationships, you’re either the bug or the windscreen?

Anyway, the source of that little nugget of wisdom is irrelevant. For all anyone cares, it may have been a Chappies wrapper. The essence of the principle lies in the knowledge that the last thing that goes through the bug’s mind as it hits the glass, is its own naught.

Like most philosophies, the law applies to anything in life. This Super 14, the Sharks were the bugs. What makes this hard to accept is the fact that in this case, the windscreen was a brandewyn & coke suiping, boep-flashing Steve Hofmeyer enthusiast with a pair of horns protruding from his cap and a ring through his nose. It’s a damn joke.

A concrete illustration of the bug/windscreen concept is available to me on a daily basis. This is in the form of the desperate, mangy pigeon (let’s call him Bruce) that makes a bee-line for my window on the 5th floor from which I can survey Dubai’s bustling city centre. Bruce, poor bugger, was born without a learning curve.

I cringe every afternoon when I hear the thud / see the feathers flying / watch him scramble again and again against the too-narrow windowsill, clawing at the impenetrable surface. It might be a bad avian Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds flashback that’s the cause this behaviour, but it’s painful to watch. In Dubai they hire falconers trained to put birds like this out of their misery. Clearly Bruce slipped through the net and there’s nothing any of us can do to prevent this cycle of self-harm.

Anyway, daily Bruce viewings are almost result in the same kind of raw anguish rendered by sight that was one horned piece of excrement lunging across the try-line in the 79th minute. One day, the Proteas, the Springboks and the Sharks will all harden the hell up and become the windscreens they have the potential to be. Til then I don’t think I can stomach hearing ‘Rooi Rokkie Bokkie’ blaring victoriously from the speakers at King’s Park again.

Speaking of glass, David Banda is giving me shit. No sooner has my 3-month old vehicle been for a service than the rear passenger window refuses to close.