On a road trip through the Cape with my friend Chrisel, we stopped to visit her aunt, Tannie Tia. She lived in Franschhoek and was the personification of "Old World" Afrikaans elegance—posh, sweet, and surrounded by silver tea services and smartly dressed help.
The atmosphere in the drawing room was hushed and refined, which was a problem, because my stomach was currently staging a violent protest. Chrisel and I had indulged in a massive Indian feast the night before, and the spices were now demanding an immediate exit.
I excused myself and retreated down the hall to the bathroom, where I proceeded to deposit what felt like a biological weapon. I flushed.
Nothing happened.
I waited, heart hammering, and flushed again. Then again. The water rose, the contents swirled, but the exit remained stubbornly closed. Panic, cold and sharp, set in. I looked around the pristine room for a solution. I spotted a small bin, emptied its contents into the sink, and realized the bathtub was my only hope. I filled the bin with water from the bath and began a desperate, manual "power-flush," praying to every deity I could name.
After several frantic buckets and a near-flooding of the floor, the evidence finally vanished. I was sweating, my trousers were suspiciously damp from the splashing, and I’d been gone for what felt like forty-five minutes.
I walked back into the drawing room, trying to look "refined" while frantically rubbing my trousers with my hands to hide the water marks. Tannie Tia looked up with genuine concern.
"Graeme, are you all right? You were gone so long."
"Yes, Tannie," I squeaked. "All good. Just... admiring the tile work."
"Oh, thank goodness!" she sighed with relief. "I was worried you’d gone into the other bathroom. That one is giving us terrible trouble!"
I sat back down, took a sip of my tea, and realized that in the world of high-society etiquette, the difference between a "triumph" and "social exile" is exactly three buckets of bathwater.
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