Pub Stories: The Triple Snotklap

He gently Patted the Crimson abrasions on his cheeks, wiping some blood on his overall, and explained: “There was a first klap, ‘Ker-twa!’

- Viv Vermaak

Then a second! Then a third!” Jan’s re-enactment of the scene looked like someone conducting an orchestra with a flat hand. “I remember staggering around a round table in the corner, with five chairs around it.”

“It looked like he was dancing,” laughed Piet with a nostalgic grin. “The sound reminded me of when we cracked the whip to herd cattle on the farm: ‘Petaf! Petaf! Petaf!’” Piet shook his head.

“Jan was looking for it, though. I told him to back off the guy, but you know what an attitude, a houding, Jan has.”

“I probably deserved the first one,” Jan confessed. “Maybe the second one, but the third klap was unnecessary. I was already on the floor.”

Houding or not, I demanded to know what Jan could possibly have said to deserve a Triple Snotklap.

“Jan told Big Ben he was getting fat.” “Oh Lord,” I said and offered to buy Jan a beer. Jan retreated into the corner with his houding and his beer, mumbling something about “freedom of speech.” Piet took centre stage, regaling the late afternoon shift with the events of the day.

He kicked the story off with their vodka-infused watermelon breakfast and built it up to a dramatic peak with the Triple Snotklap at the Bowls Club.