IF any proud parent out there has named their New Year bundle of joy ‘Penny’ it might be a good idea to rethink that one.
This name is definitely not top of the pops at the moment after Scottburgh woman Penny Sparrow’s racial squawk on social media recently comparing black people on beaches to ‘monkeys’.
Needless to say, the post went viral and has made national news.
‘Hell’ might just be quite a ‘cool’ place to be for Ms Sparrow right now, compared to what she could be in for. Even DA leader Mmusi Maimane has personally laid criminal charges.
Anyone who remotely knows Penny is now rushing to hide in the trees like sparrows (not monkeys), including the Scottburgh estate agency where she worked until November last year. Unfortunately, their name crops up in ‘Penny Sparrow’ searches.
Just in case anyone delves any deeper, we will also ‘fess up’. She used to sell advertising for one of our sister newspapers several years ago. Old colleagues say there were no telltale signs of any overt racism then, but we might have one titbit that could help any really desperate lawyer to prepare for her defence.
She was somewhat… er…. strange, to say the least, so your best bet is to plead ‘insanity’.
One hates to generalise – like Penny Sparrow did – but she is the second ‘Penny’ that comes to mind as being quite ‘fruitcake(ish)’.
The other Penny, who lived in Johannesburg, complained about a neighbour who built a sunset deck on his roof. Penny insisted that if her neighbour stood at the very far end of the deck on tiptoes he might just be able to see into her bedroom where she liked to lie on her bed… naked… to watch the Bold and the Beautiful… “EVERY evening at precisely 6pm”.
The neighbour promptly named his deck ‘Heaven’. Whether he actually got to see Penny from Heaven is not known.
Needless to say, some of one’s best friends are Pennys and many of them must be really chirping right now about that dilly Scottburgh bird giving them a bad name.
Next time anyone introduces you, perhaps the wise response would be: “Just call me ‘Pen’.”
It works for this columnist who prefers his name to be shortened to ‘Bev’. Even though there is no ‘a’ in ‘Bevis’, anyone who is closely associated with me is automatically called ‘Butthead’ (sorry Pete).
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