Extension cords. Those things that are designed to be 20cm too short, no matter where you use them.

At the store you think, “six outlets on an extension will be plenty!” You’re an idiot. Once at home, that cord no longer belongs to you. In fact, it never did. As you swiped your bank card it became the official property of her royal majesty, your wife. The six outlets will be used for her headphones, iPhone, electric toothbrush, E-reader, her other phone and two laptops. Yes, that’s seven items. You should have bought a bigger one, moron! Well, can I use one of the outlets? No, get your own!

The couch I’m sitting on is from IKEA. The company with amusing adverts that sells crappy furniture made by Chinese children. Why do I occasionally support them? Because they’re cheap. I’m cheap. Spending thousands of Crowns at a real furniture store, just for somewhere to rest my arse, is nonsense. This couch does its job. I can sit here a few minutes every day and stare into the oven, because we don’t own a TV. When we have guests they can spend the night developing chronic back pain and, with any luck, they’ll never come back.

Being inside IKEA is strangely calming. Their exhibitions of various functional kitchens, tidy bedrooms and neat homes has a soothing effect. This does, however, create the feeling that you’ve invaded someone’s personal space – someone else’s home. But as a South African I’m comfortable with breaking and entering. In fact, it brings a smile to my face along with a warm sense of nostalgia. I can feel the African sun shining through the window, sirens wailing, police dogs barking and the occasional gunshot. Swedish couples walk past, pretending not to see me as I stand smiling in a bathroom suite with my head tilted slightly back, eyes closed, hands in pockets. They’ll never understand.

IKEA has a very convenient restaurant. Also very necessary as there is no “quick trip to IKEA.” A bit like Hotel California. Couples are doomed to spend at least half the day there. Most of which will be spent arguing about whether or not you really need a set of sun chairs.

“They’re so cheap, let’s just get them!”
“That’s what you said about the tiki torches!”
“But we’ll use the sun chairs.”
“We live in Sweden! The next time we’ll see the sun will be in Portugal!”
“We can give them to my mother.”
“They only take a max load of 200kg.”
“You’re such an arsehole!”

The tension eases as you sit at the restaurant and take in carbohydrates. I recommend the vego balls with rice. It’s cheap. The food is of surprisingly high quality, unlike the furniture. It’s also prepared by underpaid foreigners, like the furniture. You attempt apologies to each other, forget the comment about your walrus mother-in-law and try to ignore all the screaming children covered in ice-cream swarming your table. The noise and stale air aren’t helping your pounding headache. It’s time to vacate.

Leaving IKEA with products you never needed and additional emotional baggage, you’re both exhausted and the rest of your weekend is stuffed. Back to your crappy couch and whatever the Netflix producers have vomited onto the platform.

Putting dirty clothes into the machine is no biggy. Laundry goes in the big round hole. Detergent and fabric softener, however, require an extra braincell. Number one or number two? The bottle symbol or the pretty flower picture? Hope that your phone is in your pocket and Google that bad boy like a real man.

Make sure the machines are spinning before leaving the laundry room. You’ve made this mistake before. You remember because your wife hasn’t let it go since it happened three years ago.

Sit on the couch, open your laptop and find some crap on Netflix. A guy having a love affair with an octopus in Cape Town. Sounds like entertainment. Now that you’ve wasted one hour of your life watching a middle-aged man get fondled by tentacles, it’s time to hang the laundry.

You’re not allowed to throw everything into the tumble drier, because cashmere blah blah wool bleh bleh shrinks blah blah are you even listening? Hanging the larger items like hoodies feels good. They leave a dent in the basket and make you feel productive, like you’re going somewhere in life. Until you lift that baggy T-shirt you like to bum around in. The one your wife hates. Under your favourite shirt are ninety-seven socks. That’s right numb nuts, you lost one!

Tiny white socks, barely visible to the male eye. The missus insists on wearing secret socks because fashion. They resemble toe condoms. Like a traffic cop hiding in the bushes, these little cotton bastards have brought your easy ride to a halt. During the wash cycle they manage to crunch up into balls smaller than your own, which you have to flatten out with your sausage fingers.

By now you’ve lost track of the days since that first sock. Time no longer has meaning and you can see the sun rising for the third time since the spin cycle. Leopard crawling away from the battle, your legs are finished and your throat is screaming for a beer. You’re grateful to have made it out with your life and can’t wait to hug your wife in clean bed sheets. That’s if she hasn’t moved on and found someone else in the time that you’ve been manning the front line.

An old-time sailor from our club told us that every new boat tests its owner. Sailing can break you down and make you regret ever leaving the comfort of your couch. Sailing as a couple creates some of the most challenging situations you’ll ever face together. You either bond and build a stronger relationship, or one of you becomes fish food.

“Sweety, pull the red rope!”
“Call me sweety again and I’ll hang you from the goddamn red rope!”

Communication in a relationship is vital. The same is true for the crew on a sailing vessel. Now your crew is your life partner and your relationship is crammed into 9×3 metres of fibreglass. This is like couples therapy in an octagon, without the referee or anyone to witness a body going overboard. “He tripped and fell, your honour.”

During and argument at home there are other rooms in which to hide and doors to slam to display frustration. Unfortunately, there are no doors on the boat. Sliding a curtain angrily doesn’t have quite the same effect. One could stomp, from the cockpit to the bow and pout into the distance, while your partner in crime sits with the tiller in hand wondering what the hell you’re doing. You are two fish in a jam jar.

One of you refers to pieces of equipment by their correct names, because life is easier when everyone knows what we’re talking about. Your loved one calls them “thingy-thing with the stuff on the thing.” Any apparatus which uses electricity is a charger and all ropes on deck are halyards.

Once the anchor is down, the engine is off and the still water reflects shades of purple and orange from the sunset, all arguments seem trivial and tempers cool in the evening breeze. The effort was worth it and you both realise, you could not have done this alone.

  At anchor for the evening

Sailing from Uppsala to Stockholm on Octavia

Being in Plett, during Rage, in my thirties feels like accidentally walking into a pre-school full of unattended toddlers, shitting and vomiting all over themselves while pissing their parents’ money onto the beach. From the Ragers’ point of view, I probably seem like a geriatric just waiting for the reaper to deliver a swift, merciful death any day now. Is there even life after 25?

A number of years ago I happened to be in Plett, during rage, at the age of 24 and was horrified at the sight of drunken children, wearing whatever fashion dictated that year while attempting their first weekend of adulting. Students cannot wait to cast off the chains of uniform, then simultaneously flock to one town and wear the same clothes as their peers. Their faces wore a smirk of cocky achievement because they had just conquered the mountain that is High School, blissfully unaware of the bitch-slap that life was slow roasting for after uni. I immediately pulled the old-man-card of ‘We weren’t like that at that age.’ It’s a filthy lying card. We were exactly like that. Possibly worse. We just choose to remember that we didn’t behave like babies away from mom, playing crap music and drinking purely because we damned-well could do so legally. Such rebels.

Meanwhile, in 2019, nothing has changed. The teenagers are doing all the same, dumb shit while believing that they are as unique as granny tells them. Except, this year, the fashion gods commanded the Ragers to dress like Rick Astley, and they obeyed by the thousands.