Size seems to matter after all

Today is my birthday. I won’t have a big dinner or extravagant gifts – it would be brutal to feast on cake while we have been bombarded for a week with reminders of exactly how divided and unequal our country is.

We have seen people losing their businesses, we have seen people stealing food, we have seen people taking up arms to protect their families and homes. My heart bleeds for them.

But we have also seen the idiotism that the lovely Snapdragon so often accuses me of: people have stolen television sets. A lot of them. Why on earth would anyone want to steal a TV? Perhaps it’s a status symbol. It surely can’t be to watch SABC TV?

Contrary to what many of us menfolk have been told over the years, size seems to matter after all. Those pictures on the internet of the proud new owner of a more-than-generously sized adult toy proved it all too clearly.

The same bigger-is-better mentality applied to the looting of television sets. I haven’t seen footage of anyone expropriating a TV smaller than 65 inches. I don’t quite understand TV measurements, but I know 65 inches is huge.

“How big is our television set?” I asked the lovely Snapdragon while I was watching looting footage on my computer.

“Thirty-two inches,” she said.

“Isn’t it a bit… uhm… insufficient?” I asked. “Won’t life be more satisfying with a few extra inches?”

“Size doesn’t matter,” she answered. But I’m sure I heard her snigger. “The shops are empty,” Snapdragon said.

“When I was at our local supermarket this afternoon, a woman came out with seven trolleys. People confronted her about her selfishness, but she was adamant: her family is all that matters to her and the rest of the suburb can go to hell.”

“There’s really no difference between her and a looter,” I said.

“Yes,” said Snapdragon. “Apart from a big bank balance.”

There’s it again… size.

This evening, I won’t eat birthday cake or drink champagne. I’ll think about burning shops, broken display windows and inequality. I’ll think about protesters in taxis and suburban looters with their SUVs and credit cards.

I’ll shed a tear for my country and its people. And after that, I’ll ponder the issue of the extra inches.