Having a ball in Debbin.

I was perusing the archives of the hilarious 6000 miles from civilisation a while ago. I am not a stalker, I am merely broadening my horizons by learning about life in a far off and exotic city containing zebras which I know very little about. I only lived there 5 years after all. To be Capetonian you definitely have to be born there. It is one of those things. And I came across a post mentioning that Debbin, my dear armpit of a home town (it was always rather warm and moist) was named after bulls' bollocks.

This sparked off a memory which I have decided to share, because I do love to reminisce. About testicles.

It is entirely true about the balls. I know this because at the tender age of 10 we were given a history research project. We had to write about "the History of Durban". 

I set out into the school library and took up the first book I could find about Durban. It was an ancient tome, with a worn cover and mouldy pages. This book informed me that Durban was named eThekwini by the Zulu people because the harbour looked like bulls' testicles. 

I faithfully wrote down that fact, not feeling the need, in my cherubim state, to find out what the word "testicle" actually meant. I had no clue. It sounded impressive.

I have since found out that this was NOT the way to go about doing a school research project. It turns out you are supposed to get your parents to buy you World Book Encyclopaedia, and then get them to erm, help you with your project. Sigh, If only I had known. 

Anyway, I got back the project, with excellent results and a message from the teacher: "Po, do you know what the word testicle means?"

I did not and and asked my mom, who laughed and then went dark red. My mom is very shy. I learned about the birds and the hornets from Cosmopolitan. That magazine is an education.

Finally she told me. I was pretty embarrassed about writing a naughty word in my history project, but it turned out my teacher loved it because all of the other projects were word for word the same blurb out of World book. Score!

So my message to you is, if you want to succeed in life, slip in the word testicle now and then, and you will have a ball. If you don't, then everything will go balls-up. Come on, do it, grow some balls. Be on the ball. Play ball with me here. Get the ball rolling. 

Bollocks. I am shutting up now. I am not nuts.