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Open letter to the WHO
Remember the days when going green just meant that in a few minutes you’d throw up? Now it means stopping people from destroying the world. And the voice of the world is growing so loud that industry and governments are being forced to sit up and take notice.
Good.
But what do we do about people who are trying to sanitise the world? I reckon that’s going to become the next big crusade after everyone has gone green and saved the earth. Surrounding ourselves in antiseptic bubbles has become so popular nowadays, I felt moved to write to the head wallah of the World Health Organization about it.
Dear Head Wallah,
It is my pleasant duty to inform the World Health Organization, or more specifically your Committee for Global Hygiene and Killing All Known Germs Dead, that South Africa is now on the verge of being the first completely sterile nation on earth.
Yes, I know Aids is out of control, but by heaven, our kitchens are spotless!
Whoa, though! If you’re thinking of conferring some sort of honour on the country’s medical researchers, don’t even think about it. It is our marketers and TV channels that are responsible for this quite remarkable breakthrough.
It all started about 15 years ago when a diabolically clever aerosol salesman saw the writing on the wall vis-à-vis the ozone layer being seriously depleted by his product. So, he decided to diversify into something that local consumers would simply be forced to buy out of sheer terror.
The idea came to him late one night after a huge party to celebrate his fifth consecutive “Most Persistent Salesperson of the Year” award when he had his head halfway down the U-bend of a Stasie Hotel lavatory in an effort to bring up 16 draft beers, a bottle-and-a-half of Chateau Brakpan Cabernet and a quart of crème de menthe.
“Lavatories,” he thought. “That’s where my future lies – lavatories.”
He developed all sorts of products to toss into lavatory cisterns, hook on to the edge of lavatory pans, and that could reach into every possible nook and cranny to obliterate germs with every flush.
At the same time he harnessed the power of television to point out to South Africans the frightening array of deadly bacterial livestock that had taken up residence in their loos.
The nation heeded his warning with such gusto that in KwaZulu-Natal, 200km2 of Indian Ocean adjacent the main Durban Sewage outfall pipe turned bright blue; and thousands of citizens who were previously allergic to shellfish were able to climb into plates of paella with absolute impunity.
Our salesman, now elevated by his peers to the level of marketing guru, was on a roll.
He moved from lavatory pans to drains and once again harnessed the nation’s TV channels to show us all the indescribable dangers lurking in our drains. We responded immediately and killed them dead.
Since then he has been unstoppable.
We are now told that those little sponge things with the abrasive green stuff on one side and that we have used for years to clean pots, pans and kitchen surfaces, are so deadly that they relegate legionnaire’s disease to the danger level of a blind pimple.
He has given us a bath soap that envelopes us in an invisible shroud of sanitation to ward off all those bacterial baddies that make us sick or cause our armpits to smell.
But, my dear Head Wallah, that's not all. We now have TV commercials telling us about household cleaning products that can obliterate viruses.
Oho, I thought that would get your attention! How about that?
All the medical brains in the world haven’t been able to find a cure for the common cold, but hey presto, a simple South African salesman has not only managed to find a way of nailing all manner of virus to the wall, but can at the same time leave your entire home smelling like roses or anything from pine forests to freshly baked bread.
And if that wasn’t enough, only a teaspoonful of his miracle domestic elixir mixed with a bucket of water can sterilise a kitchen to the point where it makes your run-of-the-mill hospital operating theatre about as hygienic as an Elizabethan cesspit.
So, Wallah old buddy, that’s the good news.
The bad news, I fear, is that any day now, some poor child is going to venture out of the sterile environment that is his home and inadvertently touch something in the garden. What worries me is that the poor child’s immune system won’t know what has hit it and the kid could contract some ghastly disease.
Antiseptically yours,
PS: Please wash you hands before replying to this letter.
Chris Moerdyk
