Saturday cons

(This was going to be a Pros and Cons post,
but there were just so few Pros)

Sifting through a helleva lot of very full registry baskets at Baby City Pavillion, I found the one I was looking for and picked out a cute bath train with a water-squirting hippo in the front.

Start time for baby shower in Gillettes was 2:30 but I left home at 2:15 thinking I wouldn’t really know anyone so didn’t want to be first there. Robbie lent me his GPS phone, set the destination, pushed start navigation, and sent me on my way. Reluctantly I left him to finish all the biltong and watch what promised to be a cracker of a Rugby game.

I Arrived at the house at 2:45 to lots of fancy parked cars. Gate closed. No bell. No one to open the gate. A friendly neighbour in an apron with screaming children and insanely vicious dogs tried to help. We both tried phoning, no answer. I put my foot down at going into her house to call over into the massive property in which the party was and could be positioned anywhere. The drawing room, or the wicker furnished veranda, or at the bottom of the garden under the large oak tee perhaps. Imagining myself calling, “hello, HELLLOOOO, please let me in!!” and then having to walk into a drawing room with all the seated Gillettes ladies sipping camomile and looking at me like I had just offered to perform a striptease was too much. I tried phoning other friends who might be able to help but all the phoning and the patheticness (I know that’s not a word but I’m using it) of the situation made me teary and I just wanted to go home. I could probably still catch the second half of the rugby. I slipped the bath train and home-made card through the gate and headed home feeling very sorry for myself.

After a little cry in the car (pause for me to say- I get like that sometimes, always have my whole life, there are certain situations that make a lump grow in my throat which I just can't push down and must set free with tears, and this was one of them. Anyway,) I decided to make good of the situation and the long drive ahead of me by catching up on some calls. In passing I said to both girls something like, “Jeez, I do hope I am going in the right direction”...

The drive felt a lot longer than it had on the way to the party, and I didn’t want to use the GPS again because earlier she had been behaving very strangely asking my to do u-turns to return to the motorway when I hadn’t ever left it. That advice would have been perfect now though, because when I saw the sign for Hilton in 1km I realized I was very far from home.

Disbelievingly I phoned Robbie as I headed off the motorway. He stayed with me on the phone as I sniffed up my snot face and approached a walkathon official for directions. “How do I get back to Durban?” As I guessed might happen, he pointed me in the direction I had just come from. He was sweet enough to let me follow him to the highway on ramp and I took it from there, still with Robbie talking me through it on the phone, completely amazed at how I had passed Petermaritzburg, which is 45 minutes out of Durban, without even realizing it. There was nothing he or anyone else could do to help me now, dusk was approaching and I needed to do the long drive home safely.

I found the rugby on trusty old Radio 2000 as the second half was beginning. It kept me semi-entertained as I drove and drove. Passing a “Durban 76km” sign filled me with both dread and optimism.

The rugby ended and we lost badly but I was feeling only relief as I was finally close to home. At 5 o’clock I walked in the door and collapsed on the couch. It took a while before I could even speak, which is unusual for me, I just lay there, stunned like a little calf finding itself free after being dragged through a slaughter house. And no, there was no billtong left.