12May


Dear Msholozi,

I hear wife #3 is demanding that SA Airlink cough up half a million rand in compensation for jewellery that was allegedly stolen out of her bag while flying from Nelspruit to Johannesburg.

Please don’t get me wrong. When I say “allegedly”, I’m not casting aspersions on the veracity of Thobeka’s story. I’m simply saying that women often forget where they put things.

I bet there are times when you find a bottle of skokiaan in the tumble dryer or a puluma in the microwave. She said the 36 pieces of jewellery were in a cosmetics bag. Does she keep her make-up in the safe?

Were those jewels really worth half a million rand or did you do what most married men do and just tell her they were genuine to shut her up for a while? A lot of women can’t tell emeralds from bits of broken beer bottles. Brenda couldn’t, anyway.

I hope Thobeka’s impressive collection includes plenty of blood diamonds. The last thing we want to be doing is giving our hard-earned cash to the Oppenheimers.

I inadvertently pulled an insurance scam once. I came home very late one night to find that I had locked myself out of the house. Luckily I had a matchbox full of Semtex that I had been saving for a rainy day, so I blew the door off its hinges and went to bed. The next morning I discovered that all my stuff was missing. I filed a claim for R32-million but later that day realised I was in the wrong house altogether. An assessor whittled my claim down to R150 after I was unable to prove that I owned a Lear jet. Do you keep receipts for impulse purchases of this kind? I certainly don’t.

Anyway. Condolences on your falling out with the Guptas and half the ANC leadership. I am sure you are angry with both. But you know how to handle this sort of thing. Do whatever you do when you are angry with all your wives at the same time. Send Gwede Mantashe to his room, Blade Nzimande to Chechnya and Atul Gupta to finishing school to learn the art of discretion.

By the way, I loved those latest pictures of you and Madiba. He seemed a bit tired, though. Not surprising, really. As you said, he was up and about, laughing and shouting and playing practical jokes on everyone. By all accounts, even doing a bit of breakdancing to entertain his increasingly expanding family while the photo op was being set up. Who wouldn’t be exhausted?

My friend Ted said Madiba looked as if he had just got back from the taxidermist. I called him an unmitigated racist and chased him out of the house but then had to phone him and ask him to come back because he had taken his bottle of brandy with him and I couldn’t face another night of sobriety. Well, a night, anyway.

Listen. These Gupta fellows. Are you certain they are worth all this trouble? Sure, they own Sahara Computers and I know how hard it is to get someone to come out and disinfect the hard drive, but still and all. I think it’s time to make new friends.

How about the Chinese? Zong Qinghou is your man. Like you, he doesn’t have much of an education, but he does have R140-billion under his mattress. He also has a very creative accountant, something we all need when it comes to filing our tax returns.

Speaking of which, I hear you’ve been hanging out with Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan. Well done. This is a man who knows his way around a hat. When you see him, please give him this letter.

Dear Mr Jonathan Sir,

My name is Benita Trovato and I am a beautiful woman of 27 living in the paradise of Durban. I have worked hard to save orphans and cripples for my whole life and now I have cancer in my prostrate glands.

Because I do not have long to live, I want to give all my money to charities but not in this country because there is too much corrupt men who will steal my money and spend it on drugs and whores and BMW cars.

I was blessed to inherit some money ($50 million dollars) from my kind father who before he became late was working in the garden of generous Mr Escobar who paid very well in American dollars.

You may be asking why I have chosen you but God told me in a dream that the starving people of Nigeria can make a better use of my savings. The Lord has touched you, Sir. I beg you to help this desperate man from Pretoria.

Next month I am going to have an operation for my diabetes and the doctor said there is a good chance I will not survive. I do not want this to happen while the $100 million dollars from my murdered mother is still in my bank account because our banks are run by bad men who will steal the money as soon as they hear I have gone to Jesus.

It is my Will and Last Testicle that you, President Goodenough, take the earnings and through you spend it on the motherless and other people doing our Lord’s work in Lagos.

Right now I can not ask you to telephone me because my doctor has ordered me to rest and also I can not even give you my number because my relatives are spying on me to make sure I do not give away my billions to charity. They want to execute me and already they have infected me with the cholera while I was sleeping.

Even though I have never met you, I saw your picture in the newspaper and I can see God has made his special mark on you. I want to give you 30% of the $300 million dollars to say thank you for helping an old blind woman from Bloemfontein.

I am too fragile and weak from the malaria to do anything for myself, so I have asked my Lawyer to help with this holy project. He says that because your name is Goodfaith, you will not object to showing you are professional and serious about helping us to help yourself to help the unprivileged.

He is therefore asking for a small amount of $50 000 dollars for proving trust before making arrangements to transfer the $500 million dollars into your personal bank account. He says he can accept payment in the form of cocaine if it is easier for you.

I appreciate if you keep this information top secret because the government will torture me to get my money and that would make the soul of my poor expired father very unhappy. Please hurry because I am also nearly dead.

My email is skabenga@nicetry.con.

Yours in Christ,

Sinenhlanhla Smith (Mr/Mrs)