The other day I'm driving along the N12 to Potchefstroom. The Whitney Houston hit I Have Nothing comes on the radio and a deep melancholy washes over my body. No, not because I'm aggrieved over a lover who has jilted me; the words "I have nothing" sadden me due to the Marxist state prevailing in my household. In the words of the "woke" kids on Twitter, they are "triggering".
I grew up in a household where my folks, my three brothers, whichever relative was living with us at any given period and a helper were all crammed into a two- or three-bedroom house. Like Martin Luther King jnr, I had a dream. My dream was that one day I would sleep alone in a bed and have my own cupboard space that I'd arrange to my liking. I dreamed that I would own my own tube of toothpaste that I would squeeze from the bottom up without some Philistine squeezing it at its midriff, leaving it looking like Trump in a Speedo. I dreamed of my own television set, with the picture set exactly to my specifications. Heck, I dreamed of having my own cutlery and my own coffee mug.
The only person exempt from the communal arrangement in my house was my dad. His Toyota Corona and, later, Mazda 323 and Mazda 626, were clearly his. The single couch in the lounge was for his exclusive use even though his appearances during primetime TV viewing were as common as Pope Francis's visits to the local mosque.
So, when I stood in front of Father Reggie in an ill-fitting suit and proclaimed "I do", I was harbouring whiskey-induced delusions of such an arrangement in my own house. By the time reality sank in, I realised that, in so far as property and real-estate ownership within the confines of my home were concerned, I would always be at the bottom of the pile.
I cannot count the number of times my friend "Bizza" Buthelezi, with whom I share a passion for boxing, has texted me: "Quickly, switch to 207 now! They're showing Hagler vs Hearns right now!" and I have had to lie through my teeth about how I'm not in the house. This is because I'm too embarrassed to tell him that, Look, the young ones are engrossed in an intense game of Watch Dogs 2 on the PlayStation 4. And that also the Boss of Me (BOM) is catching up on her Grey's Anatomy on the other set. I don't own a TV, you see, because if I watch two hours a week (mostly football), it's a lot.
My most enduring memory from the height (or is that the lowest depths?) of the Nkandla telenovela is not Minister Nathi Nhleko losing 10kg in fluids explaining fire safety regulations. What I remember most is how often I was asked, "But why so many different houses and rondavels? He could have built an impressive mansion with that money."
Rolling my eyes, I would explain that a Zulu homestead was designed that way. The man of the homestead had his own standalone house. His wife or wives had her/their own house(s). Every child got their own house as soon as they hit puberty.
This, I believe, is how nature intended it to be.
I conducted a thorough scientific study on the subject, which is to say, I posed the question, "Did your grandparents share a bed?" to my WhatsApp groups. In all, 83.6% respondents answered in the negative. Only 8.7% answered in the affirmative and 7.7% were too inebriated to bother.
It is possible that this says more about me than about domestic living arrangements, but I reckon after President Cupcake is done with his job summits, investment indabas and whatnot, he needs to convene a Domestic Arrangement Indaba to address this "mutter of national importance", to quote our erstwhile president.
My dad had far more leeway in exercising the patriarchal privileges passed down from generation to generation of toxic males, but even he was starting to feel the heat. I believe that his generation was the first in my AmaQadi clan that was expected to share a living space with the whole family. Many afternoons he would drive in to the garage and then spend about two hours in the car, reading his copy of Ilanga lase Natal and listening to the current affairs programme on what was then Radio Zulu, Abasiki Bebunda, with a forlorn, faraway look in his eyes.
But compared to me, he still had it significantly better. At least his clothes were strictly his. I have no such luxuries. The BOM's favourite casual wear in the house is whichever one of my T-shirts or football jerseys she fancies. I don't have exclusive use of any of my jackets. Or caps. I don't even have exclusive use of the laptop I'm typing on right now. It doubles as the default homework churner, despite the existence of three other laptops in the house, in various states of disrepair. Apparently, mine hits the sweet spot.
The last time I sat on the throne in my bathroom, uninterrupted, for longer than two minutes, George W Bush was still looking under Saddam Hussein's bed for weapons of mass destruction.
But don't cry for me SA, I'm just being a whiny, entitled crybaby pretending that the cloak of male privilege enveloping me does not exist. Still, I have a dream that one day my tormentors will leave the "T" part of my G&T alone and instead guzzle the gallons of crème soda in the fridge...