The Warehouse We Call Home

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The pandemic reminded me that shops are nothing but warehouses. When that happens, contractors take dangerous objects from their tool belts and remove shelves and other fixtures that make a shop, a shop. I find it amusing that fixtures can be sold. What do people do with them? Coffee shops for example. Besides Starbucks, two other coffee shops have gone out of business in this town. Who will buy the espresso machines that make the noise: pshiiiiiiiiiiii?

Home As A Warehouse

Home is not one big empty warehouse as such, because it is carved up into rooms with doors and windows, unless you live in one of those New York warehouses converted into lofts. Home is a warehouse filled with fixtures in the bathroom, kitchen, living room and bedroom. It’s home because human beings live there and use the fixtures. Remember movies where a man comes home and his gut feeling tells him there’s trouble in paradise? He opens closets and he’s greeting by one coat-hanger dangling in solitude. Don’t tell me she took all coat-hangers. That would be the epitome of cheap.

Home is a warehouse unless it is painted with sounds and smells. Fried fish lingers in the air, but it says someone is doing something for someone in the kitchen. Corn bread in the oven or skillet heralds a good dinner. Plain pasta boiling away also has its aroma. Little kids fighting over a toy are also part of sounds and smells that make a warehouse a home.

Parliament/Congress as a Warehouse

There’s always drama in Parliament or Congress, with its special language. “My friends across the aisle,” says a congressman. Of course it’s sarcasm, but it is what injects a particular building with purpose. Parliament buildings in former Dutch, French and British colonies are replicas of buildings in Europe. They are not warehouses like in a factory, but at the end of the day, they are, if there’s nobody inside.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

Blogger Without Borders

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