A hope and a prayer.
Those are the things I’m living on.
The other day I nearly burst into tears while out grocery shopping; seeing the price of chicken immediately took my hunger pangs away.
I mean, it’s chicken.
Tamsyn Jantjies
How can the powers that be make willy-nilly decisions to push up the price of chicken, for goodness’ sake, man.
Chicken is the staple of every meat eater’s Sunday lunch menu. What am I supposed to make now? I’m surely not having baked beans and wors on a Sunday because my mother, rest her soul, taught me better than that!
I obviously understand the reason for the mini heart attack inducing price hikes, but why can’t we just have our chicken the way we want it – affordable and roasted to perfection with a few potatoes on the side?
I feel the need to revert to the ways of my forefathers and set up a chicken coop in our minuscule backyard, get some chicks and set myself up for happy-ever-after Sunday lunches.
But in all honesty, hopes and prayers are the only thing keeping most of us going.
Hoping the month-end shopping will last ’til the next pay day, and praying not too many people show up for Sunday lunch or at dinner time in the week.
There are some who get an increase in salary, which helps keep the chicken on our tables a little longer, but there are people out there who have been forced to follow a strict diet of bread prepared in a creative manner every other day, not to grow tired of the taste.
For a millisecond the country saw a glimmer of hope with a new President’s induction, but that was soon overshadowed by rising food prices and completely obliterated by consecutive petrol price hikes – and we are to expect another next month.
You know, when you’re at the gym and the instructor punishes you with repetitions, and your only thought is that little breather after the set … But the instructor is merciless and goes straight into another set with you and you start to feel as if your chest and muscles are all going to fall from your body … That is how I, and I’m sure many others, feel regarding the ridiculously high cost of living in this country.
There’s just never a chance for South Africans to catch their breath, or save it for that matter.
So now I’m hoping and praying that somehow, somewhere at an intersection I’ll find someone trying to sell a few chickens, and that my dad will agree to feed them. But now I’m thinking, who is going to pay for their food?
Maybe baked beans and wors aren’t so bad for a Sunday lunch. But who am I kidding? I need that moment where you make sure all that meat has been stripped from the bones.
Urgh! I just want my affordable star pack chicken back.
