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Why, oh why, isn’t 2018 getting the hint?
Is it just me or has this year long since outstayed its welcome?
It gives Thuma Mina a whole new slant – send me anywhere, but here.
I see colleagues staggering into the newsroom – they’ve sent their brains on holiday but have failed to go with them. It is like an endless episode of The Walking Dead.
Some can’t make whole coherent sentences, others stand in the kitchen swaying to the sound of the boiling kettle and some are turning up dressed like a parody of a beach holiday – sun hats, sandals and shorts, all worn in a desperate attempt to lure the elusive holidays closer to them.
Just this week I sat down in my colleague’s office to say something ... 10 minutes later I was still sitting there trying to remember what it was. Weirdly, she was sitting there staring at me blankly waiting for me to think of it.
We still don’t know what it was.
Another colleague put on her earphones – and about 10 minutes later muttered to herself, “Why have I got these on?” She had forgotten to turn on her music and was just sitting there listening to nothing.
Everyone is valiantly trying to remember the best and worst of the year for our final edition – the consensus is that, even in a year with all our South African drama, the worst thing by far is that the year won’t end!
By the time you read this, you will be one of the few remainers – those who haven’t driven off to the seaside or decamped to the mountains.
You are, like me, one of those who tragically believed you could make it through another week of work.
We thought it would be easy to make it to the Friday before Christmas, after all, we thought this in October when everyone was planning their leave.
We still had a bit of gas in our tanks – and we didn’t yet know (or perhaps we had forgotten) that the first 15 days of December would defy the laws of time, test our endurance and become a Herculean task to conquer.
Can it be possible that these 15 days are longer even than that other terrible annual quest – surviving until our January pay cheques?
And what is with 2018 resurrecting zombies – in December?
Not only has Hlaudi Motsoeneng started a whole political party in December, Jacob Zuma (who we have only just got rid of) has joined Twitter – in December.
Seeing Oprah and Beyoncé was supposed to be the final note this year. Shame on a year that doesn’t know when to go.
Follow me on Twitter @GayleMahala
