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Soiling yourself in traffic no joke but what the heck

There is an incident I witnessed on a trip home for December holidays about four years ago.

I didn't have a car then. I was a passenger and thus able to watch and explore the road and surroundings in a way you can't as a driver who has to watch the road.

Not too long after The Carousel tollgate, a car that had been travelling ahead of us was now parked on the side of the road, the driver's door flung open and a man hurriedly stepped out.

As we approached the car, I saw that he had a roll of tissue and was headed towards the bushes. It could only mean one thing: the man had diarrhoea. I laughed, a little more than I should have. Beloved, I have finally paid heavily for laughing at that poor man.

The past weekend was the inaugural Abantu Book Festival, the first ever book festival of just black writers.

One day I will write about the experience of being in that space.

As part of the festival, I had two back-to-back sessions on Saturday morning. As a responsible adult that I am, I left the festivities early on Friday night so I could be well rested the next morning.

I woke up on time and got ready. As I finished I felt a discomfort in my tummy, a light groan. As I started to leave the house, the little groan grew into a thunderous grumble. I attended to it, and threw a quick glance at the time. I had enough time to get to the venue.

I got on the road, the endless sprawl of unending tar that is the M1 freeway.

My friend Moya has warned me on many times on just how unpredictable the freeway can be, and that I would one day get into trouble because I kept expecting it to oblige to my fancies and mind my schedule.

On that morning, as I hit traffic approaching the Allandale off-ramp, her words came to me. I hate being late, for anything, and at that point I knew I was going to be late, as one of my friends had said to me just the night before, there is something arrogant about being late.

I am many things, but not arrogant. I try to see ahead of me, to see where the accident is, I can't make it out. As fate would have it, my belatedness would begin to take a back seat.

Like dark clouds gathering before a storm, the grumble in my tummy began with intensity, this time not caring to give me a warning groan first.

I opened the windows and put the air-con on the highest setting. Was this what menopausal hot flushes felt like? The traffic was not moving, I was in the fast lane, and there was no way for me to egg to the left to attempt to get off.

I was stuck, not only late but with a tummy that threatened to explode at any second. What followed was the longest hour of my life.

By the time I went past the traffic scene my tummy was in such a state that I could barely drive.

I pleaded with my body to hold on, just a bit longer until I could come to a stop. My body tried, but in the end, it was all too much. It released what it could no longer hold.

Luckily I had had the foresight to pull my dress up, but as I felt the warm liquid move up and around my spanx, I finally knew what surrender felt like.

Sitting there, in my warm faeces, car still speeding I received the great gift of humility, a reminder that things can and will happen to you while the rest of life moves ahead at full speed.

I finally came up to a place I knew and stopped the car to use the bathroom. As I sat in the toilet, I called a friend and I told him what just happened.

He laughed, I laughed. He stayed on the phone with me, laughing, as I cleaned myself.

I then got on another call, to the festival organiser, apologised for missing my first session but told him I would make the next one.

I would have preferred for these lessons, reminders to come in a different way, but I am still grateful for them.

And this is what I will take into 2017; there is freedom in surrender, remember to stay humble and to laugh at yourself, accept that time doesn't stop because you need it to. But most of all, allow yourself self-pity, for a while, but you MUST carry on. Also, Joburg freeways are not your friends.lMahlape is a publisher at Jacana Media

 

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