AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE - NOT SURE WHO WROTE THE ORIGINAL THOUGH

You Know You're a Zimbo if:
- You can still remember Sally Donaldson's voice.
- You failed your driver's licence first time.
- You saw 'Grease' more than three times.
- You still wear vellies without socks.
- You miss the smell of rain on a hot, tar road.
- You miss Christmas by the pool...
- You horrify people by eating raw, dried meat.
- You horrify other people by cooking boerewors 'to death'.
- You coveted a Raleigh 'chopper' bicycle.
- You got a 'Rebel' instead of a 'chopper'.
- You still secretly think that day scholars were pampered mommies boys.
- You took driving lessons in an Anne Hunter Anglia in Bulawayo .
- You still own some Springbok Hits LP's.
- You still pee on the lawn at night.
- You carved your name on a famous landmark in Zim.
- You chatted up a farmer's daughter at a Country Club get together - with one eye on her Dad.
- You did wheelies on the Enterprise Road outside Gremlin's
- You almost lost the family jewels on the rock slide at Mermaid's Pool
- You spat from a window on the top floor at Monomotapa onto the Pool deck and ducked your head in quick.
- You can still sing 'Ag pleeez Daddy'.
- You actually miss the housebrick we were assured WAS bread.
- You played 'Bezant' at midnight, full of Castle, and ended up in a rockery.
- You whinged to the waiter at Caribbea Bay at the outrageous price of their beers during the Tigerfish Competition.
- You injected Cane spirit into a pocket of oranges to beat the booze ban at the Rugby at the Police grounds.
- You promised faithfully to meet the 'gang' at precisely noon 10/15/20 years 'from now' for a reunion, and haven't heard from them since.
- You still refer to toilet paper as 'bog roll'.
- You got a speeding ticket trying to make the border by 6 PM.
- Your forearms and the areas between you lower thighs and mid calf are irredeemably burned brown by the sun.
- You once owned an 8 track car tape player!!!
- You still own a record player and can pull out the vinyls when need be!
- You eat cuts of meat today that were ration meat in the old days.
- You have given up looking for a good meat pie.
- You had a domestic worker called Sixpence.
- You miss the smell of red stoep polish.
You miss the sound of the old clanger metal dustbin lid.
- You bore or frighten your children with harrowing tales of your deprived upbringing in the days when TV started at 17H00 and kids were expected to ride push bikes to school...
- You have graduated to more sophisticated food than chicken in a basket at a restaurant!
- You still butter bread by holding the slice in your hand... No Way!!
- You wish you'd had the presence of mind to keep mum's morrie minor
- You ate supper in Vila da Manhica, the Vila Perry or Guido's on occasions.
- You can remember the beer adverts on the tin trays the hotel waiters used...
- You can remember thinking that Bengal Juice was OK.
- You still believe it's wrong to use bad language in mixed company
- You still think of traffic lights as robots
- You know the words to more than two ABBA songs
- You HATE washing your car and mowing your lawn. Ironing is still something other people do
- You didn't see 'Are You Being Served' and other British comedies until 1980
- You still find it hard to throw things away when they could be Fixed
- You went to a school that taught real subjects like grammar and history
- You went to a school where instead of being 'counseled', unruly students were beaten - and it worked! You wore your "cozzie" under your school khaki shorts when you thought you were going to be "dawked" (caned)
- You complained to your father that you were disciplined at school - only to find he thought it was a good idea.
- You used to call your parents' friends 'Uncle' and 'Aunty'
- You used to believe that in England and the USA they must be so much better at everything than we were - until you visited those countries and found they were inhabited by ordinary people who lived ordinary lives
- You have driven on a strip road
- You long for that soft morning glow that brightens the sky between 6am- 8am.
- Really miss a great, fantastic, bed rattling, window shaking earth tremoring, all-kids-and-animals-in-the-parents'-bed tropical storm.
- You parked your car in a car park and couldn't find it again, because it was a blue Renault 4.
- You shot every snake you saw even though you knew they were essential to the balance of nature.
- Someone stole your car and returned it the next day, because it was a Renault 4 and they felt sorry for you (hell they were too embarrassed to be seen driving it)!
- You remember watching the brown grass turn green after a day's rain.
- Arguing that Castle was for men Lion was for kids
- You put green stripes on your R4 so that you could find it in that car park!!! You found a hundred R4s with green stripes on them!!
- You still wonder what this thing polystyrene is, you know of kaylite.
- You still refer to Koki pens as Neo's.
- Muuush is still common in your vocabulary, as is 'lekker'.
- You still have Wrexx Tarr's 'Chilapalapa' LP's and know the words to 'Cockie Lobbin'.
- You hear crickets in July and remember the December Christmas beetles.
- You know or still write to someone from PE, Saints, Churchill, Ellis Robins,Chaplin, Plummers, Guinea Fowl or Gwebi Agricultural College, Convent, GHS, Roosevelt, QE, Eveline, Townsend and the rest.
- You drank Tanganda Tips tea or Preema Coffee (or Day Break).
- You shopped at Truworth's, Edgar's, Meikle's, Barbours, Sanders or Kingston 's.
- You had an avocado,mango, guava and pawpaw tree in your garden.
- You played in a sand pit and on a jungle gym.
- You thought bilharzia was an incurable disease but still swam in the rivers and dams anyway.
- You remember jacaranda trees in full bloom.
- You remember when a Coke or ice-lolly cost a tickey.
- You miss the taste of bream fried on the side of the dam five minutes after you caught it.
- You have at least one ivory, soapstone or wooden carving.
- You still remember the taste of gem squash and melted butter, mealies and Mazoe Orange Juice.
- You think there is no green surpassing that of the Sandawana emeralds.
- You still expect to see a chongololo after an afternoon rain and a few flying ants.
- You still believe your A-levels were harder than most first-year University courses today.
- You still refer to an expert as a 'fundi'.
- You still say 'braai' instead of 'barbecue' or 'kopje' instead of'hill' or pk instead of toilet
- You were brought up to believe toilet a coarse word and used the word lavatory or WC instead, and still cringe at the word toilet.
- The following names mean something to you: 'Sandro's', 'Arkies', 'Club Tomorrow' 'Electric Circus' - or in Bulawayo - Hollies
- You collected coke cans on your trips to South Africa 'cos they were so cool.
- You still can't get your head around the idea of throwing away a glass coke or beer bottle, instead of taking it back for the deposit.
- You remember the days when you got « c change and used it to buy sweets at the tuck shop.
- You bought a Zimbabwe Cricket Union T-shirt from a girl vending them around the cricket grounds - and tried to get her to sell you the one she was wearing.
- You were there when the 'chicken farmer' beat England .
- You think the 'all Blacks' are the Zimbabwe Tennis Team.
- You were a member of Hellenics / Callies / Raylton / Alex / Postals /Salisbury Sports.
- You've even been boating on Lake Mac - before the hyacinth.
- You've even driven up to Montclair for an evening's gambling and been back at work the next day.
- You still think the most haunting sound in the world is the cry of the fish eagle.
- You've never carried your own golf clubs, and think that golf carts are a sign of weakness.
- You've spent an hour looking for a lost golf ball at the 'police' course - on the fairway! j
- You thought that an evening at Reps was the height of culture.
- Good beer comes in brown bottles.
- You know at least one person who has 'streaked' at the Harare Cricket Grounds.
- You remember sitting for hours in petrol queues - and not getting any.
- You even got fifteen people into a VW Kombi - long enough to get past the gates at the 'drive-in'.
- You made out in the back of a car at the 'Nitestar' or the Mabelreign Drive-in.
- You thought the Borrowdale Road was a motorway.
- You remember with nostalgia the days when the Zim Dollar was trading at eleven to one against the greenback.