Want to inject a touch of surrealism into your life? Try being a single male parent for a while...
I'M wrestling with an armful of clothing in a Makro changeroom. And I suddenly find myself in the middle of what feels like that old Rolf Harris song.
Just like the inside of any big shop
People were everywhere
Suddenly business was brought to a stop
When a terrible yell hit the air..."KanTHAN!!!!!!!!!"
I miss and stick my left foot down the same trouser leg as my right. "What is it, Aura?" I ask through the curtain between clenched teeth.
"You're a boy, hey? You haven't got a 'china???"
Pause. Whisper. "What?"
"I'm a girl. I got a 'china!!!"
"No, Alfred Nzo's got two Chinas," I mutter, trying to salvage some dignity from the situation.
I slip my jeans back on, and open the curtain, and what feels like hundreds of people look in my direction, some disapproving, many amused.
"Does anyone know this kid?" I ask.
"That's my daddy," she says brightly to the sales assistant.
I've been doing the single parent routine for three weeks now while Kate is on walkabout in Australia. During this time, Aura Devagie Pillay, 33 months old, has been continually reminding me just how dramatically things have changed in the three decades since I was her age.
Television wasn't around when I was that young. What I learnt of the world came from books that were patiently read to me by my grandfather as I sat on his knee and assailed him with interminable whys.
Aura has skipped the television generation altogether. Instead, she walks up to "her" computer, turns it on, inserts a CD-ROM, fires up her software, and starts playing.
She mouses across the screen with blinding speed, clicking a tree here, an animal there.
She doesn't know how to read, but the interactive Dr. Seuss teaches her the ABC. Ruff's Bone teaches her about the constellations. Reader Rabbit teaches her how to assemble collections of simple words that have alphabets in common. Sesame Street teaches her phonics.
Her enthusiasm is contagious. She flips through to the letter "S" in Dr. Seuss's ABC. "Silly Sammy Slick sipped six sodas and got sick sick sick!" she chortles.
She pauses for thought, making a connection. "KanTHAN!!!!!!"
"What is it, Aura?" I respond from the next room where I'm reading an old fashioned paperback.
"I want to go see Slick."
It takes me a while to figure out what she's talking about. I have a family membership at Durban's Sea World, and Slick is one of the penguin stars of the dolphinarium.
So we head off to the aquarium with Aura carefully waddling along in a penguin imitation. And as the dolphin show draws to a close and jets of water gush across the pool, she is reminded of something else and turns to me with a look of distress.
"Kanthan, I need the toilet."
This is a problem. She's too short to go in by herself. I cannot go into the ladies' without running the risk of being assaulted by some Tannie from Tweebuffelsmeteenkoeëldoodgeskietfontein. So I take her into the gents'.
The seats in men's public toilets are generally unusable. So I hold her in mid-air above the loo. And an entire contingent of what look like retarded rugby players on steroids enter at that moment, and stare.
"That man looks funny, hey?" she says loudly, pointing towards them.
Later on, I try patiently to explain to my mother that I am not an invalid, and am perfectly capable of cooking, cleaning, and washing clothes for myself and my daughter.
"That's why God invented washing machines, tumble dryers, vacuum cleaners, and ProNutro," I say to her.
It could be worse, I tell myself as I hang up the phone, looking at the long trail of dogfood from the kitchen to the back garden where Aura has been "helping" by feeding our pair of Rottweillers. She might have been one of those whining drooling snotty nosed brats.
I sit down and reach for my book, and she waddles over, crawls onto my lap, and rests her head on my shoulder.
"You're my friend, hey?" she murmurs as she falls asleep.
Kids. I hate `em.