As icy darkness fell over Johannesburg's northern suburbs last night and impis of men (sorry, I mean people) armed with the latest painting-defacing tools (cans of paint and their fingers) prowled the streets, I threw some old sheets over the Maggie Laubser and Maud Sumner inherited from my parents.
Luckily, I had to flog the Preller and the Kentridge a few years back to make my bond repayments. My friends up the road with the Irma Stern/s must be freaking out, what!
It was the fearful knee-jerk reaction of a ghetto Jew in medieval Europe; well, actually the mid-20th century in Germany would have been good for fear as well. There was a time when I would have headed straight for the garden and unearthed my trusty Fabrique Nationale7.62mm, not to mention father's Webley, and told them, like Zwelinzima Vavi, to "bring it on".
But now I am too old and dispirited. Should I (should we), I wondered, as I sat there shivering, call in Judge Goldstone? But he didn't seem to have been of much use in Gaza. Can't have apologists in these tough times, you know.
Anyway, judges, especially constitutional court-type ones, are not exactly the flavour of the month in this neck of the woods at the minute.
So, I sat and shivered in my living room, in which no ever lives, only partially calmed by the knowledge that Professor Anton Harber, the Caxton professor of journalism, would doubtless soon explain in his wise, patient voice that this was all happening only because the ANC wanted to divert attention from a UNICEF report on children or perhaps from Diepsloot.
But partial calm wasn't enough, so - my voice diminished by trepidation to a Ferial Haffajee-type whiny lilt - I called a friend living in another country.
"Geez, South Africa seems to be in a state of perpetual hysteria these days," he noted glumly.
He was, I realised, correct.
First, we had the long saga of the expulsion of young Julie Malema from the ANC. Never was a young feller so unwilling to leave the womb - and cutting the umbilical cord took months and months and reams and reams of horse manure (though my metaphor is a bit insulting to horses everywhere).
This seemed to have been the prologue to the hysteria that was soon to come.
The Democratic Alliance, a minority party, which in truth doesn't have a chance of taking any kind of meaningful national power in my lifetime, and sports a leader with questionable dance skills and a voice of huge portent - sort of like 702's Chris Gibbons in full flight - wanted to take a little march to Cosatu's building in Braamfontein to make a point about the frozen youth subsidy.
This was of course its right and privilege in our wonderful democracy.
Oy-va-voy-lanu, did those self-righteous, fat-bellied, bullshit-spouting Cosatu prats take offence! Can't have bloody honkies, bloody madams, usurping our role, can we?
So, pushing their spokesman Patrick Craven aside (though I could see him wearing one of those WW2 helmets that the Home Guard used to wear on the streets of London), they organised a booze-fuelled ("only hot stuff," as one of my sources remarked) strike force to throw rocks at the poor DA members, who merely wanted a bit of a kumbaya in Braamies.
But what amazed me was the reaction of the Commentariat.
Instead of crapping out Cosatu and the quintuple-faced Zwelinzima Vavi, these yellow-bellied, pusillanimous little sons and daughters of the Giant Cliché said well now, the DA really shouldn't have ventured on to the streets, you know. It's really not their role, darling. What poor tactics, no one will vote for them, snivel, snivel, snivel. (By the way, guys, those who weren't going to vote for them, weren't going to vote for them anyway. As for undecided young people, they probably loved the show of backbone.)
Then came that painting - and we have now the full-blown hysteria of the president and the ANC taking a painting of Zuma's fictionalised dick to court (three judges, a full house, nogal, will examine aforesaid peanut - now a reproduction thereof!); the young communist league threatening to take a leaf out of Cosatu's book and march on the gallery; and of course two bozos going into the gallery and defacing the artist's gentle satire.
Most of this, most of what has been going on - is going on - is known to you, dear readers. You can hardly have missed it. Let me just offer President Zuma a couple of words of advice.
First of all, if someone paints a picture of you with a large shlong, especially a shlong that's in repose, don't say a word. Simply walk around from dawn to dusk with an insouciant grin indelibly etched on your punim. Never mind "insouciant"; let it be a shit-eating grin par excellence.
In other words, you should have left that particular sleeping dog, if you follow my drift, to lie quietly.
Yes, I know, there's all this bitter codswallop - again from the Commentariat and surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, from people such as Mondli Makhanya - about your sexuality and such-like. Pay no attention. They're just jealous of your apparent sexual prowess.
But, more than that, dear President, there are a lot of people out who really seem to hate you. You really get under their skin. You really get up their noses. You're a living threat to their self-righteousness and holier-than-thou masks behind which they live their lives. Who cares?
Second, don't take legal advice from Gwede Mantashe or Blade Nzimande or any of the other bozos surrounding you. Why? Because you're going to get thumped in court.
The court's going to go to the requisite section of the constitution and this is all going to become a "freedom of expression" issue - and those, like you, who don't want your alleged shlong on show, are going to be cast in the role of the big bad ogres stifling freedom of expression in the western world. Michele Obama's going to get upset and have to buy a new dress.
Don't listen to Mantashe or Nzimande when they say the painting - blacked out, anyway, by that young, Ninja-looking black fellow - is "racist". That's codswallop. That's like saying that Michelangelo was an anti-Semite because he mad a statue of mein king David, completely sans clobber and with a small, uncircumcised chiluga. These artists, you know. By the way, I see Paul Hoffmann got it wrong about you being circumcised - or else you misled us at the rape trial. Either way, don't worry; either way, you're in good company.
Finally, though it might be a bit galling, think of Tselane Tambo's message on some social networking site. I thought it was quite apposite. "So the Pres JZ has had his portrait painted [not quite correct, but never mind] and he doesn't like it. Do the poor enjoy poverty? Do the unemployed enjoy hopelessness? Do those who can't get housing enjoy homelessness? He must get over it. No one is having a good time."
Then go and have some breakfast, look around at opulent Mahlamba Ndlopfu, pat your wives on the head, pat your wallet, and move on.
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