One of the tell-tale signs that we are in a recession is the number of imbibers who areturning to gin-and-tonic.
The history of gin-and tonic is a fascinating one. Apparently, in the 1700s, there were British soldiers stationed in India at Her Majesty Queen Anne’s behest. (I think they were there to bring the Indians an independent judiciary, transport infrastructure and all the wonderful legacies of colonialism.)  To thwart malaria, they would drink quinine water, which they mixed with tonic, sugar, lime and gin to mask the bitter taste.
There are many other everyday items that are not used for their original purpose.
Everyone who grew up in a township knows about the bar of Sunlight soap in the bathroom. Besides the laundry bit, it's also used to cleanse the bowels of kids; hence the colloquial name for laundry soap bars, isichathabantwana (children's enema).
The same goes for the orange sack in the same bathroom; the body scrub of choice.
Ditto old car tyres for "traditional" sandal soles and swing seats. And don't forget that little gem from the Mother of the Nation in the '80s about liberating this country one match and tyre at a time.
This brings me to the contraption we call a smartphone. The "phone" part is a bit of a misnomer, no? The etymology of the word is the Greek "phone", which means "voice" or "sound". I don't know how you use your phone but for me, 99% of my usage does not involve my voice at all.
Has this ever happened to you? You're on your phone, having the most riveting WhatsApp debate about - I don't know - whether Lionel Messi's consistent brilliance makes him a superior player to the erratic genius of Diego Maradona.
And at the moment that you're typing the ultimate debate ender, where you point out that Maradona has an entire religion dedicated to him called Iglesia Maradoniana (the Church of Maradona) with 80,000 followers, including Gary Lineker - the phone rings.
Aaargh! And now you have to be that guy staring at his phone, trying to decide whether to pick it up or just let the bloody thing ring all the way to Voicemailfontein.And if the bill wasn't paid, your service was suspended. When you tried to make a call, a recording of a woman with the world's most annoying voice would tell you, "Your service has been suspended.
Please contact your Telkom branch." And this is how it came to pass that having your phone service suspended was referred to as, "Ziyadlala, kukhulum' umlungu ocingweni" in my township. That means, "It's messed up. There's a white woman on our phone."
At home, if the phone bill was R200 in any given month, you can bet that I was responsible for at least R100. When my folks started locking the phone receiver, I came up with an elegant solution; I found an alternative receiver that I kept in my trunk and connected at 11.45pm when everyone was in Lalaland.
My girlfriend from Umlazi would be hovering over her phone like a hawk so it didn't ring more than once and wake everybody up. And then the three-hour marathons would ensue until my ears started burning or I had to put the phone down for a bathroom break.
So by the time the mobile phone made an appearance, circa Mandela's inauguration, I was all talked out. Then they installed the World Wide Web in mobile phones and all of a sudden voice calls became nothing more than irritating, obsolete interruptions.When you are on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS or BBM (if you're archaic), you feel in control. You have time to think about what you want to say, how to say it and how to tailor your lies to suit whatever persona you're attempting to present.
And if part of that involves telling people that you are enjoying a spa treatment in the tranquility of the Azura Benguerra Island resort in Mozambique, and not really in a townhouse in Midrand, you can do just that.
The last thing you need is a voice call when your background noise includes a chap selling feather dusters in loud Sotho.
I'm finding that more and more calls I make go unanswered. I do the same. It's getting to be that I consider a phone call an ambush of sorts. The problem? People generally call you to ask for something - hardly ever to offer you anything. And the sneaky folks always start out a conversation with, "Where are you, what are you up to?" The worst response you can give is, "I'm at home, just chillin'."
That's how a big-headed columnist ends up on the M1 driving a friend's aunt from his maternal side, twice removed, who suffers from chronic flatulence and has a hearing problem, with all four windows rolled down.
• Follow the author of this article, Ndumiso Ngcobo, on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo..