Reaching a certain age, one tends to believe one has experienced it all.
Those of us in the “old Ballie zone” – not sure what our spouses should be called but wisdom dictates to let it be – like to think we’ve been there and done that many times over, and collected a thousand T-shirts along the way.
We are not easily impressed, but ever so often something enjoyably new crosses our paths. It doesn’t have to be major.
The past weekend when members of our Black Mamba Club gathered to support the Springboks against Wales, was a case in point.
Despite our well-developed cynicism, our sophisticated deportment always accommodates subtle little pleasures.
Normally a think tank of intellectual discourse solving pressing national and international matters and advising presidents – advice they never acknowledge or implement – the council of wise men and their wiser women, all in the 70-80 age bracket, will, for obvious reasons, shift their attention solely to rugby for the next two months.
Set in our ways, a few raised eyebrows were evident as the Mamba bomb squad trooped in for the big game on Saturday.
There, nestled between the bowls of biltong, droë wors and nuts on the temptation table, stood a silver platter heaped with neatly arranged ginger biscuits around a fancy glass pitcher filled with some honey-coloured liquid.
Rugby is a robust business where copious volumes of thought-stimulating Captain Morgans, Johnnie Walkers and foam tops hold sway, so a high tea type intrusion was regarded with some suspicion.
Introduced by the newest club member couple, much younger than the average membership age, politeness inhibited snide remarks.
Having a surgeon in the house can only be beneficial when, in the heat of the moment, threatening unruliness on disjointed knees, possible dislocated hips and lethal walking stick gestures may cause some physical grief needing expert intervention.
Soon, all was revealed.
The ginger ritual entails everybody having to dip and soak a cookie into the pitcher containing neat ginger brandy every time the Boks score points.
OK, this was a first, but no stress.
While Captain Morgan was steadily promoted to Admiral and Johnny walked a marathon as the game progressed, a few additional “branna” cookies surely posed no additional peril.
Just how many points can the Boks score in a tight test match after all?
In this case, plenty! Nobody could have envisioned a runaway 52 scoreline, so the branna cookies flew off the platter at an alarming rate.
By the last quarter of the game merriment reached fever pitch, so much so that the Black Mamba bomb squad’s elder statesman even began shaking his walking stick vigorously, demanding ginger infusion on credit for points still to be scored, if only for ginger’s well-known health benefits, of course.
All this before the braai fire was lit and the wine industry’s shares skyrocketed.
By some miracle nobody fell over, testament to the squad’s staying power.
But ginger cookie dipping will now become a standard ritual as the Rugby World Cup gets underway – as will copious amounts of heartburn medications.
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