GADIJA

“In the sixty-three years that I’ve been alive,” I was telling Gadija Gabier while both of us were waiting to get our monthly health check-up at the day hospital, “I’ve had the dubious pleasure of meeting some of the dumbest people ever to walk this planet.”

“Gail Adriaan, shame on you! You can’t say that,” Gadija said in outrage.

“Why the heck not?” I countered. “If people are stupid, why should I ignore their stupidity and make as if they are clever?” I asked. “I do not have a fondness for stupidity in any shape or size. In fact, you know how allergic I am to stupidity,” I added.

“Good lord,” Gadija said and rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “I don’t know why you’ve become so cantankerous in your old age,” my eldest friend said, making me shift my butt to find a better position on the uncomfortable wooden bench placed for our ‘convenience’ in the waiting area.

“Take this bench, for example,” I said. “Would anybody with an ounce of intelligence have placed this here for old people to sit on when that person knew said old people would be sitting on it for hours upon hours?” I gave Gadija my ‘I dare you to say I’m wrong’ look, my left eyebrow arched high for emphasis.

“Well…” Gadija began, but I was quick to interrupt her. I also don’t have time to waste on people who talk slowly. Time is life, and my life is too precious to waste any time.

“The answer you’re looking for,” I said with sarcasm dripping from every single word, “is no. Only a true moron would think of using such a device of torture disguised as a seat for old people. The fool probably hoped it would dissuade us from overstaying our visit,” I spat out. “What the simpleton neglected to take into account is the fact that the length of our visits are dependent on how fast the doctors and nurses work to see us,” I explained, slightly out of breath.

“Fine, fine. You’re right,” Gadija conceded to avoid further unnecessary arguments.

“And who’re your calling ‘cantankerous’?” I suddenly countered.

“Sorry, Gail,” Gadija said meekly and offered me a mint. I gratefully took the proffered sweet. After sucking on it contentedly for a while, I came back to my opening comment.

“As I was saying earlier, I’ve met an inordinate number of numbskulls in my life. I’m still trying to decipher how they manage to survive without brains,” I added and laughed outright.

In spite of her objections, Gadija joined me in the laughter. So did a few of the other patients sitting near us.

“So, tell me about some of these ‘numbskulls’. And I had better not be one of them,” Gadija said in jest.

“Oh, but dear, you are indeed one of them, as am I,” I admitted and launched into an account of the idiots I’ve run into on my journey through life.

ROWENA

Rowena knew she was an idiot. She had been told that many, many times by many, many of her friends, so it had to be true, she reasoned. When she told me what she believed to be true about herself, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I opted for keeping a Very Straight Face.

“Listen,” I said in a very authoritative tone, knowing how well Rowena responded to People in Charge. “You can’t go and just believe what people say about you, unless they actually prove to you that what they are saying is true. I mean, they need to provide you with facts, no?” I asked in an attempt to make this sweet but intelligence-challenged woman feel better about herself. Admittedly, I had also told her on one occasion that she’s an idiot.

We were having a truly horrendous winter one year. It felt like Cape Town had been transported to another location on the globe, possibly somewhere very near to Antarctica. I even wondered if the end scene in the film “2012” had become a reality, the scene where Cape Town ends up in a different place as a consequence of a global natural disaster.

Everybody was freezing their hineys off, dressing like Eskimos on steroids and going through gas heaters like it was a new trend. I was, of course, no exception; however, I detest wearing layers of clothing so I chose to wear a thick insulating puffer jacket over my normal clothes. I also took to wearing a woollen cap, for the cold seemed to find excessive pleasure in nipping at my exposed ears.

One morning, as I arrived at my parking spot at work, I saw Rowena trying to get out of her car. She could barely squeeze out of the driver’s seat because she was so bundled up in winter clothing. She wore long black boots, tights and gloves. Over her thick jersey, tucked under the woollen scarf she had wrapped around her neck, was a full-length winter coat made of mohair or suede, I wasn’t sure what. As she finally managed to exit her vehicle, I noticed the knitted cap perched on her head. Yes, perched. It wasn’t pulled completely over her hair to cover her ears; it dotted her head like a useless coronet, leaving her ears wide open to the chilly air.

I just could not leave well enough alone; I had to ask her why she was wearing the cap in that fashion.

“Rowena,” I began, “why don’t you pull your cap over your ears? Aren’t your ears feeling the nip in the air?” I asked in all innocence.

Rowena’s eyes opened wide in surprise. So did her mouth.

“Gail, I can’t do that!” she gasped.

“And why not?” I asked in all innocence. Again.

“But if I do that, I won’t be able to hear anything!” she said. Then she had the temerity to add “Duh”, as if I were the moron.

Needless to say, I didn’t have the requisite acumen nor skills to persuade her that she wasn’t a confirmed idiot.

PAULINE

Pauline was another of those who went through life wearing blinkers and being plucked out of harm’s way by invisible Guardian Angels. She had not the slightest sense of shame when she told me about the time she had taken a bus home. Nothing wrong about that, but wait till you hear the rest of the story.

“Gail, I tell you I felt like such a fool!” she joked at her own expense. I was keen to hear what could have happened to make her realise her true nature, so I looked at her wide-eyed and open-mouthed in a pathetic attempt to encourage her to embarrass herself.

“You see, yesterday I took the bus home after work. I had had a really, really, really long day,” she explained, “and I just wanted to get home, relax in the tub with a glass or three of wine, listen to music.”

She droned on and on, about her cat, about her sore feet, about having to cook, about who cares! I verged on telling her to get to the flipping point, but I bit my tongue and made non-committal, sympathetic noises. Eventually she got to the heart of the story, and I sighed in satisfaction. It had been oh, so worth the wait.

“Anyway,” Pauline continued, “when I reached my flat after a short walk from the bus stop, I was shocked not to see my car in its usual spot in my driveway. Where was my car?” Pauline said. She also mimicked her confusion and search for her car by looking all around her. It was very entertaining, I tell you.

“I went inside, intending to call the police because I was convinced my car had been stolen,” she continued, “but then it hit me. I had gone to work that morning with my car.”

Pauline laughed uproariously at herself; I joined her, of course, but then she admitted something else that truly, utterly, completely slayed me.

“It wasn’t the first time it has happened to me,” she whispered confidentially. I think I peed a little in my pants from laughing so hard.

EBRAHIM

Ebrahim Ismail is a friend I know from way back, when he worked as an IT Support Technician at Sanlam when I was also still employed by them. He’s an amazing person who’s ready to help anyone and everyone at any time of the day or night. The only problem is: he’s always overloaded with work. He has so many irons in the fire that he often becomes as confused as a sufferer of Alzheimer’s Disease.

One day he came into my office with an extremely sheepish look on his usually jovial face.

“What’s up?” I immediately asked. “You look like you put your pants on back to front this morning,” I joked.

“If only,” he said, surprising me. “That I could have lived down,” he added, “but this!”

Now I was intrigued. I was dying to know what had happened, but luckily I didn’t have to drag it out of Ebrahim. He volunteered the story all on his own.

“Waleed Abrahams from Sales sent me a WhatsApp message earlier, asking me if I could help him. He had dropped his cell phone and the face had cracked. It’s a company-issued phone so he wanted to know if IT could help out,” Ebrahim explained. I waited on tenterhooks for the other shoe to drop.

“I replied by telling him that it depended on how severe the crack was … and I asked him to send me a screenshot of it,” Ebrahim finally confessed in a voice that went softer and softer.

It took me a second to realise where the stupidity of his reply lay. And then the other shoe finally dropped with a loud thud. I’m proud to say I did not laugh. As if.

LINDSAY

Lindsay Pentolfe was always a fitness fanatic, spending tremendous hours in the gym, working on his physique. Granted, he had a body to die for, but I will forever remember him for the moment of idiocy that crept up on him soon after he turned forty.

He arranged to meet me for a friendly lunch date at Café Bijoux in Claremont. His lovely wife, Olivia, accompanied him. Soon after we had sat down, Lindsay turned to me with a mischievous look on his handsome face.

“Gail,” he said, “you won’t believe what stupid thing happened to me this morning.”

“Just before he was about to go to gym,” Olivia added.

“What, what?” I asked in agitated curiosity.

“I have a particular pair of shorts that I love to gym in because they’re really comfy. Well, I think I must have looked all over the house for about twenty minutes for it today. Olivia was in the shower so she couldn’t help me search for it,” Lindsay explained.

Olivia abruptly took up the tale, as if she couldn’t wait to share the details about Lindsay’s folly.

“He looked in the laundry basket, his sports bag, in his car, in our wardrobes, under the bed, between the sofa seats, even underneath the washing machine. He went so far as to look inside the microwave for it,” she explained while I was already giggling. I just knew where Lindsay must have eventually found the missing shorts, but I kept quiet.

“By then, Olivia had finished her shower. She came up to me while I was yet again digging through my wardrobe in search of the darn shorts,” Lindsay commented.

Olivia said, “I asked him, ‘Babe, what are you searching for?’ and he said, ‘My black shorts, man. My favourite ones.’ I looked at him askance and asked, ‘You mean the ones you’re wearing right now?’”

I tell you, the three of us were laughing so hard it looked like we were crying.

GAIL

“Wait,” Gadija cut in before I could go on to the story of the next idiot. I also noticed how all those sitting in the waiting area were gleefully listening to my anecdotes. Old people love listening to stories to while away the empty hours.

“You said I’m one of these numbskulls,” Gadija continued, “so tell me about my silliness,” she challenged me.

I laughed merrily and said, “Actually, it wasn’t you. It was your grandson who said something funny the other day. Okay, it wasn’t something idiotic, but it was amusing,” I explained.

“Oh?” Gadija said in puzzlement. “When was this?” she asked.

“It happened last Saturday when I came to visit you,” I reminded her.

That’s one of the worst things about aging: the way our memory seems to turn into holey cheese.

“Daniel had come to visit and we were sitting out in the garden, enjoying a bit of sun,” I explained.

“Oh, yes! I remember,” said Gadija, “but what did Daniel say that was stupidly hilarious?” my witty friend asked.

“You had teased him by telling him he looks like one of the gnomes in your garden, and then he had said –”

Gadija interrupted me in her sudden recollection of the event. “He had pointed to a clay figure of a lizard and had said, ‘Nah, I kinda look like this one, this lesbian’.”

Both of us had a good laugh again at Daniel’s malapropism.

Just then we were both called in to see our respective doctors. A good thing, too, for I didn’t have to tell the tale of when I had acted like a certified idiot. Okay, fine, I’ll share it with you.

Last week, Janine Fernandez and I went for a delicious meal at D’s Noodle Bar in Strandfontein. When we received our order, it looked so good that I tried to take a photo of the scrumptious-looking meal by holding the front of my phone facing the meal. I looked at the back of the phone in confusion and said, “Now how do I take the pic?”

Janine sighed loudly. Taking the phone out of my hands, she said, “Don’t be such a dumbass. You need to change the lens to selfie mode,” and took the photo.

In my defense, it was a brand new phone. Can I help it if I’m not techno savvy?

Image: Jane Almon (www.unsplash.com)