I have been holed in Welkom since yesterday. To the uninitiated, Welkom is in South Africa. A small town in the Free State about 300km outside Johannesburg. In fairness, Welkom is a big town in the Free State. Probably the province’s second biggest city after Bloemfontein.
Before I get waylaid by matters geographic, let me get to my point quickly before I miss out on all of the five television channels Welkom has to offer.
Honestly, I don’t get it. What is the obsession with small towns and fewer TV channels? I know it is not in the statute books. But you could swear there is small town code written somewhere with bold letters: DO NOT LET OUTSIDERS WATCH TOO MUCH TV.
Of course they make sure they have the rugby channel. After all, that’s what the manne in these towns live for. That is when they are not out drinking and kicking a few blacks for recreation. Sometimes they kick the blacks even when they are not drinking. But it is less fun.
If you are lucky you will catch the football channel, but other than that, all they give is the mandatory three SABC channels and M-Net, outside the rugby. I am convinced M-Net is meant for the tannies, especially to catch Idols and fantasise about what could have been had they not been bred into an arranged marriage.
Something tells me there is only one reason why we are condemned to only a few channels: sex.
You see hotels are notorious for being havens for sex crazed and famished sinners from out of town. And naturally, these types sneak out to small town where nobody knows them, and of course where hotel rates are slightly above a double whisky at the Michelangelo in Sandton. In that way, they get more for less.
Of course the elders in small towns detest this. They hate it when outsiders come into their towns and commit abomination like having fun. Generally in small towns, fun is reserved for rugby on Saturday afternoons, karaoke Saturday evenings and then after death in heaven.
Being happy is just ungodly. And sex! That is meant only for procreation, the local predikant with local widows or unhappily married tannies.
Also in on the take is the police superintendent who seeks motivation to release young boys who trashed the town on a Friday evening after bingeing on mampoer and, wait, sex before marriage, with the black maids nogal.
So to look away, so to speak, the tannies have to incentivise die kaptein but promise to keep it secret. But of course this is the weapon the wicked policeman uses to blackmail the other women in the town for future favours.
“If you want your son like Mrs Pampoen’s son to also go home and not spend the night with the blacks in the cell, well make a plan Viljoen,” he is known to say. And everyone lives happily ever after.
But here is the contradiction. Most small hotels in the middle of nowhere and far away offer their guests free Wi-Fi but not enough TV channels. How does this make sense? This surely defeats what the local predikant wants.
I mean with internet connection, all these sinners from out of town can download even dirtierstuff than what miserly Multichoice has to offer these days. I mean have you watched the latest X-rated movies on TV lately? I have seen kinkier nursery school books lately than what we are subjected to in the name of adult TV.
And besides, in the absence of enough TV, I imagine that all the guests can do is get down and dirty. What else is there to see or do?
So, as I go out to a golf day dinner at the casino, another sin camp that die predikant hates with a passion, I cannot thank heavens enough from saving me from an SABC 1 special of a 2001 movie release.
Just as well I have something to do, because that receptionist was starting to be too nice. And this is Welkom Inn you know.
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