Someone shot at me, but the cops don’t seem to care

This week I had planned to write about our children and how they are more sexual than we all acknowledge. As I type this it is Tuesday, just before noon. About two hours ago, someone took aim at my head with a pistol.

Because of the size of my cranium, it is a near impossible-to-miss target even for the most rotten shot. That's just my way of saying that if the bastard had squeezed the trigger, I might have been fertilising daffodils by now.

After the incident with the gun aimed at my head, I had a conversation with one of the subeditors at this paper to tell her that I might file later than usual because typing with shaky fingers is a tad difficult.

As I explained to her, the drama had managed to remove any "funny" inside me. However, after gulping down a pint of lager I started thinking about everything more calmly. All of a sudden I took it as a personal challenge to find the lighter side of the whole thing. Let's see how I do.

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Since last November I have walked 10km every other day for exercise. Why not jog, you lazy bum, I hear someone ask. It's a long story involving a left-foot injury I got from my football-playing days about 30kg ago. That, and the fact that the sight of a podgy man with well-developed C-cups jiggling all over the show is not what people need to see just after breakfast.

So anyway, I'm walking back to my house around 09h55 when I realise that my gate is wide open. Hmm, how peculiar. The remote is in my pocket. That's when I spot a black Mercedes Vito with tinted windows parked under the carport.

There's a sinewy fellow with the face of a starving rat busy tinkering with the automated gate-control box. I would like to report that I walked up to him calmly, and politely said: "My liege, kindly refrain from doing whatever you are doing and vacate my humble abode in this working-class neighbourhood."

The truth is a little different. A combination of shocked horror and blinding rage made me yell at him in Zulu, referring to him by his genitals before barking at him to be on "a sexual departure", if you know what I mean. General mayhem ensued. His "colleagues" in the Vito panicked and shouted at him to open the gate. This is when he whipped out what I think was a 9mm pistol and aimed it at me.

I have managed to shed about 8kg since last November so I'm a bit more nimble, and managed to duck out of sight before he could squeeze one out. I ran down the street screaming like a teenage girl in a bad Hollywood slasher flick. Other than a few neighbours' mutts who ululated in tandem with me, no one seemed to care.

block_quotes_start Seeing as these policemen were clearly not interested in any police work today, I let it slide block_quotes_end

After the Mercedes sped off in the opposite direction, I approached my house with more than just a little trepidation. What had they taken? What had they broken? Was my helper OK? As it turns out, she was completely oblivious to the whole ruckus because she was busy with the laundry, with D'banj or P-Square blaring in her ears via her headphones as usual. Why were the dogs not barking? Had they been shot or poisoned? It turned out the two Judases were at the back of the house sniffing each others' nether regions as usual.

After satisfying myself that there was no damage other than the control box and the minor bruise to my ego for fleeing while shrieking in a high-pitched voice like Zwide's army with Shaka's in hot pursuit, I called the SAPS and my armed-response guys. The security guys came almost immediately. I wasn't so fortunate with the police. They got here an hour and 12 minutes later, which I actually found impressive because they broke their arrival record from the previous break-in by about an hour and 38 minutes.

This is when things became - how shall we say - fascinating.

It has been my observation that the long arm of the law has become mostly just the potbellied arm of the law these days. And Tubby and Lardy who pitched up certainly didn't disappoint. I hate being "that guy" who perpetuates the "SAPS are lazy and inefficient" stereotype but I have to tell the story the way it went down.

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They came in, hands in their pockets. I get that; it's 13h19 right now and it's still about 13°C outside. They asked me what happened and I pointed out where one guy must have jumped over the fence, complete with a set of shoe-prints. I alerted them to the control-box cover with a visible thumb print. They whistled loudly and marvelled at how "professional" the guys must be, with admiration-filled voices. And then, with the sort of wide-eyed wonder I have seen on the faces of German tourists on Vilakazi Street, they went on a tour of the house, asking me how much I was selling it for, based on the "For Sale" sign outside. I mumbled a figure.

We were back outside, next to the gate, when Tubby asked me the question I have learnt to expect in these situations: "So, eintlik, grootman, ufuna senzenjani manje? " (So what would you like us to do now, old guy?) I'm not much of a fan of CSI but I'm pretty certain that I've seen coppers dust the scene for prints and whatnot. I wanted to respond, "I don't know. What normally happens after a crime has been committed?" But seeing as these policemen were clearly not interested in any police work today, I let it slide.

As it turns out, while Tubby and Lardy were busy with work-avoidance at my place, a house about 3km away was burgled by a trio driving - yep, you guessed it - a black Mercedes Vito. I'm guessing that about 15 minutes ago some perplexed burglary victim was being asked, "So, eintlik, grootman, ufuna senzenjani manje?"

To fix the famous words by General Bheki Cele: stomach out, hands in pockets!

E-mail Ndumiso Ngcobo at ngcobon@sundaytimes.co.za or follow him on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo