Last weekend, on a walk with the dogs in Newlands forest, my friend and I agreed to write our versions of how we met our respective partners. It is a question that always comes up when you start hanging out with new people. They look you in the eyes, steeple their lobster claws like Zoidberg and ask "So, how did you and ?? first meet?" Then comes the silence. Some well-rehearsed and slappable couples tell the story as a duet. Each knowing their lines and cues. They proceed to dance a perfectly timed ballet, complete with pauses, chuckles and loving glances. (At this point I vomit from my salt water stomach only)
When my human and I are asked this question, we both sigh. Not because we don't have a story - we DO have a story - but because it's always up to me to tell it, he doesn't add a thing. He is reluctant to do the dance, and I am tired of it. Now I am committing it to type and will hereafter direct any lobster-clawed inquirers to this post.
SO, back in the December of 2005 I was dating this guy and living in Johannesburg. One day he says to me: "Jenny, you hate your job, I'm sick of mine, let's quit and move down to Cape Town."
"Sure," says I, all wide eyed and excitable, "A road trip!"
Turns out that he needed to stay on a bit longer in Jo'burg, but he drove down to Cape Town with me on a Friday, in my ancient powder blue Ford Escort. In my car I had: a rolled up foam mattress; Ugg boots; short skirts; a big wooden trunk full of my stuff. The dumbass boyfriend drove half way through the Karoo in 4th gear. My poor old car was an early adopter and being ahead of its time it had 5 good gears to grind. Anyway, in a cloud of panting car smoke, we made it to Cape Town where I was to stay with my boyfriend's older brother in his commune until we found a spot.
HAH
I started working in a props studio, and the hours were looooong. When I hadn't heard form the absent boyfriend in a suspiciously long while my eyes started to wander. There were some gorgeous arty boys working in that studio, and they all had rock 'n roll*** hair. (I have a weakness for rock 'n roll boy hair) After I had a brief, heroin-infused liaison with one of them, my boyfriend called to say that he was doing quite well up in Jo'burg and wasn't going to move down, he said that I should go back up. Whaaaaaat?! I told him I had been with someone else. Boyfriend and I then ended it.
Later that day I was mixing up a two part plastic and this guy entered the room, a really hoopy frood. He had long dreadlocks, all tied up - Basquiat style - in a breast cancer awareness month sunflower bandana. His fingers erect and wiggling in urgent anxiety, in the manner of Captain Jack Sparrow's. He looked me in eyes and asked: "Hither, wither, thither is the fucking spatula?!".
That was pretty much it for me. Thereafter it was merely a matter of time. A mention of a dirty dream here, and damsel's plea to help her pop a bearing in order to wear the casing as a ring there, some furious flirting, and in just a few months we were inseparable and have been ever since.
My husband's version: "Yeah, we met at work"
Balls to brevity.
***ah, the old 'n or n' or 'n' conundrum. I prefer to introduce the conjunction with ', and let the final letter fall by the wayside. I will not coddle or suffocate that middle N with punctuation, nor will I send it on its way with an after-thought apostrophe. The essence of rock 'n roll being what it is, I feel that the middle child needs its space, and if it's a bit rebellious, if it goes against the grain, more power to it.
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