Commentary

You are a skettel if ...

By Leighton Levy

THE WORD SKETTEL has been a part of our vernacular now for several years and there was a time when I thought that a skettel was just a woman who was an awful dresser, you know someone who would wear like a summer dress to a formal event like a long-service award or a prayer breakfast, or choose to wear a lacy party dress to a wedding believing she is a trendsetter.

However, there are days when you'd be walking down the street and you'd see a woman behave in a particular way, and in response you'd hear someone describe her as being a skettel, but if another woman behaves in an entirely different way to the same stimulus, she is also described as being a skettel.

As it is, a day does not go by without you hearing someone describing some woman (or effeminate man for that matter) as a skettel and after a while you come to realise that being a skettel is not only about dress style, it is also about attitude and behaviour. It's a way of life.

As such, I sat down and decided to come up with a list of behavioural patterns that will help people understand just who falls into the category of skettel, based on my own personal experiences, and here is what I came up with.

You may just be a skettel if you like it when your man comes home drunk and beats you up.

You may just be a skettel if whenever someone confronts you over an issue, your first response is to kick your shoes off in anticipation of a fight.

You may just be a skettel if you go shopping for a pair of 'glass-bottom' go-go shoes to wear to your own wedding.

You may just be a skettel if the cost of your weave is more than it would cost to have those cracks on your heels treated.

You may just be a skettel if someone can tell that you are wearing a weave from 50 yards or more away.

Bleaching cream

You may just be a skettel if you leave your house for the supermarket wearing curlers in your hair and white bleaching cream covering your face and chest.

You may just be a skettel if when your date takes you to a fancy restaurant you order soup and when it comes you ask why they left out the meat, yam and dumplings.

You may just be a skettel if while at the fancy restaurant you ask for a little sugar and lime to go with the water in your finger bowl.

You may be just be a skettel if while you are at that fancy restaurant you look at the place settings and ask why are there so many knives, forks and spoons before you, and when the food finally arrives complain about the quantity on your plate.

You also may just be a skettel if before you, begin to eat you pull the plate into the crook of your arm and huddle over your food in a predatory manner, using only the fork to shovel food into your mouth.

You may just be a skettel if while in a gathering of strangers - like on an airplane 30,000 feet up - you allow flatulence to escape loudly, laugh and then joke about the stench.

And, you may just be a skettel if you choose to wear out in public a medium-sized midriff blouse even though you past medium 60 pounds ago.

The list I compiled is way, way too long to include everything in this limited space, but if any of the above reminds you of anyone you know, who knows maybe he or she just managed to qualify.