By Braam Pretorius – Last of the Nail and Wood People

I’ve walked where men weren’t meant to walk. The red sands of Angola.  The fevered alleys of Lagos.

 I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with ghosts and giants. Heard secrets whispered in broken lifts.  I’ve seen things.

But nothing, nothing, prepared me for what I saw last week in the Spar in Harties.

A Bakkie Hakkie.

There it hung. Proud. Plastic. Pointless.

 A tool, no, a crutch, for those too tired to climb into the back of their own damn bakkie.

“Use this hook,” it said. “So you never have to step up again.”

And that’s when I knew. It’s over.

The Last Nail in the Coffin

Once upon a time, men carried tyre levers and rolled up their sleeves.

Women tightened the last bolt before sunrise and lifted children and cattle feed without complaint.

Now?  We need a hook to pull a cooler box two feet closer.  It’s not a tool, it’s a white flag.  A surrender to the god of convenience.

We used to build with nails and wood.  Now we hook and drag.

The Cost of Convenience

Sure, it’s clever.  Sure, it’ll sell.  But at what price?

Every Bakkie Hakkie sold is one less knee bent.

One more step away from the stoep, from the veld, from the kind of life where you earn your reach.

We don’t need more gadgets.  We need grit.

We need the calloused hands of the forgotten builders, the last true farmers, the tired uncles who packed trailers by torchlight after a day on the land.

You think this is about a hook?  It’s not.  It’s about what we’re becoming.

For the Few Who Still Read

If you’ve made it this far, you’re one of us.  You still believe in loading your own bakkie.  In asking for help instead of designing around it.  In pain with purpose.  In getting in and getting dirty.

To you I say this:  Hold the line. Refuse the hook. Keep the nails and wood close.

Because when the power goes out, the AI collapses, and the last app crashes, we’ll still be here.

 Building. Lifting. Living.  Not depending on a Bakkie Hakkie boet.