I work very hard for my money, and I feel that I have the right to enjoy it through fancy dinner parties and idyllic holidays. Unfortunately, like most middle-class South Africans, this particular pleasure has been denied to me by rampant inflation and Trump’s tariffs. Instead of Portofino, I holiday in aisle nine of Spar, squinting at unit prices and pretending not to cry near the meat fridge.

So, in lieu of cheese boards and sun-drenched balconies, I am left writing blog posts in my free time to earn extra money and resenting the things I have to pay for. I could wax lyrical for hours about the ever-increasing price of water and electricity, but I acknowledge the need for utilities and I’m usually reasonably happy to pay for them, except during loadshedding. I’ve been on enough disastrous camping trips to understand the value of a hot shower, a flushing toilet, and an electric blanket.

No, my resentment comes from something far more dastardly and sinister: cleaning products.

Not only is Handy Andy outrageously expensive, but one needs a bank loan to afford a pack of toilet paper. I assume two-ply is now reserved for visiting dignitaries. A bottle of Windolene could bankrupt you, and a single kilogram of dishwasher tablets costs more than a small farm in the Karoo. Not a particularly successful farm, perhaps, but still.

And while I peruse the virtual shelves of Sixty60, doomscrolling through disinfectants, I can’t help but reflect on what these purchases really mean: not just that I’m spending a small fortune, but that I’ll have to use the products myself. It’s economic masochism in its purest form: I have to pay to suffer, scrub and disinfect my way through a house filled with people and pets who seem immune to mess-induced anxiety.

I have long since given up on spending hours crafting carefully chore charts that are colour coded and laminated, only to have them treated like decorative curiosities by my children. I do have a lovely lady who helps with laundry, but the bulk of the cleaning falls to me and my long-suffering husband (who is intimately acquainted with the scent of Domestos).

What gets me is not just the cleaning, but the fact that I’m bankrolling it. I kill myself to make a living and then fork over my earnings for lemon-scented fluids that promise sparkle but deliver deep resentment. And for what? So that I can wipe down surfaces with the frantic energy of someone trying to outrun price increases just to make my house respectable for a dinner party that I’m not going to have because I can’t afford to.

And here’s where the real tragedy lies. Somewhere in the back of my kitchen cupboard, behind the novelty mugs and chipped bowls, sits the fine china I inherited years ago. It’s bone white with a soft floral trim and just enough gold to whisper “generational expectation.” It’s been bubble wrapped and quietly waiting for decades. Waiting, presumably, for a roast duck or some other extravagance I will never afford. What it gets is a withering glance as I butter toast and balance scrambled eggs on a plate that once said Live, Laugh, Love, before the dishwasher faded it into vague irony.

I deserve a dinner party. Instead, I stand knee-deep in cat hair and crushed cereal, brandishing a bottle of Handy Andy like a sad little sword in the battle against domestic chaos. I may have teacups with gold rims but I also have dishcloths full of holes.

There’s something bitterly poetic about dusting off the cabinet that holds the china I’ll never use, using a cleaning spray that cost more than a Sunday roast. I dreamed of silver teapots and linen napkins. What I got was a lifetime subscription to lemon-scented despair.

I’m infuriated that my aspirations have been scrubbed away by overpriced bleach and that the closest I get to elegance is a streak-free stovetop, and that my inherited tableware is gathering dust, not cradling crème Brulé.

If silver teapots are the symbol of aspirational living, then a bottle of Jik is its tragicomic reality: heavy, necessary, and never quite doing what it promises on the label.