Disclaimer: Some names have been changed to protect (myself from) others (who will most likely try to sue me for sharing this).
I’m sommer going to use the names of the Charlie’s Angels actresses. I would use the character names, but speaking fondly of a Dylan or an Alex might give y’all the wrong idea. Mind you, Cameron and Drew aren’t much better either… Ag, just go with it. I’m the only man in this story. The only real one, anyway.
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Men and women. God love ‘em. I can’t speak for the female populace, but I can speak for most men when I say that we really enjoy seeing someone of the opposite sex nekkid. Preferably in the flesh. Preferably with her consent. Preferably without paying (*cough* *cough*, Baber!)
A few years ago as I started my illustrious career as a rad public relations consultant, I went on holiday with a bunch of girls. It was my sister and two of her friends, me and two of my girl-friends (Note the hyphen to indicate the accursed platonic state of things). That’s five in total for those keeping score at home. Fun. Especially considering that 80% of these girls were single. And not my sister.
The New Year was around the corner, and on the 30th of December we made a bevvy run. We. All 6 of us, piled into a 1979 Volkswagen Jetta, the model before the Fox. Remember that car? If you’re thinking ‘small’ then you’re thinking of the right car. And with 6 of us in it, I almost had to resort to steering the thing with my Johnson, but back then it wasn’t that talented yet (Yeah, like it can do any tricks other than the hula-hoop thing…)
Aaaaaanyway, I went into the Protea Drank Winkel (liquor store), and it being a long queue, started a holiday convo with the chap behind me. He was friendly enough. He caught me outside to say cheers, and like any/most men would, I pointed toward my car filled with bikini clad women (and my sister, who was wearing her church clothes) and said, “I’m going home with them” He scoffed, so I added, “And can you believe, only one of them is my sister.”
The chap politely asked where we lived, but it was my turn to scoff, which I did, got in and drove off.
Unfortunately we couldn’t help ourselves and had a huge kuier on the 30th, which meant that we all had a bit of a babbie1 on the 31st. No New Year’s party for us. I wasn’t too bummed, I mean, I still got to spend the time with my friends, and that’s all they are after all; friends. No devious scams that I could blame on the New Year’s Eve festivities, I’m just not that guy. Still, everyone felt bad for bailing on the night one is supposed to party one’s lungs out, so we decided to go have our own little New Year’s jollie patrollie2! Well, as soon as we could stomach the idea of binging – that took about a day.
While my sister and one of her friends decided to stay home and watch movies, I loaded the car with the other three buxom beauties and off we went to Hermanus, about 30km from where we were summering. The bar slash club we ended up at was the Gecko Lounge, or something like that. Schalk Burger, theSpringbok/Stormer/WP rugby player was also there on the evening, and I knew I was going to talk to him sooner or later, I just needed to get some alcohol in my system. I gave myself a two-drink limit before I switched to soft drinks, I was driving after all.
My second drink, aptly named “Zombie”, contained a formidable mix of all sorts of 43 percents. Thing is it also had Stroh Rum in it, but you don’t taste it, hell, the Zombie tasted like koeldrank3! Needless to say I started ordering some for my touring party.
The Zombie gave me the liquid (read: Dutch) courage I needed to go and have a chin-wag with dear old Schalk and perhaps make a happy memory. I walked up to him, introduced myself and wished him a happy new year. Then I told him that I’m going to be on the front page of Die Burger4 the following day. He asked me WHY I was going to be on the front page of Die Burger, and I laughingly replied “Want ek gaan vir jou bliksem!5” Thankfully, Schalk laughed with me instead of making me swallow my own teeth and we met a few of his friends. They were lovely people and the four of us had a fantastic night out. The Zombies helped too.
We hit the road well after midnight, intrepid travellers, 30 klicks from our destination.
On the drive back, Lucy saw a sign for Botrivier, a small town not too far down the road, but in the opposite direction we were headed. She asked, “Ali, can we go to Botrivier?”I raised an eyebrow in disapproval, (also known as Die Valkoog6) and gave her a stern glance in my rear-view. “What do you want to do in Botrivier at this time of night, everything’s closed” I said in a tone that I kinda hoped would put her off the idea.
“I want to go swimming!” she continued. “Swimming? There’s no way I’m driving to Botrivier at this time of night for you to go swimming”
- Die Valkoog
“But we’re ALL going to swim” Lucy said with a sparkle in her eye, obviously brought on by the Zombie(s). Though I wanted her to enjoy her vacation with me, I also really didn’t want to drive to Botrivier, so I said the only thing a sober, calculating, evil genius would say. You know, that thing that no matter how it’s answered, you win:
“The only way I’m going to swim now is if we all swim in the buff”. I hadn’t even finished my sentence when all three of them sang along in agreement.
There I was, driving along a dark road in the middle of the night, an obscure song blaring on KFM, somewhere between Hawston and the Kleinmond turn-off, with three girls ready to rid themselves of the terrible burden that is their clothes. I thought I should check my hearing, perhaps give myself a pinch or a slap (on the cheek face… /valkoog ). I turned to Lucy and Drew in the back seat “Ok, but it’s kinda pointless to drive 20km out of the way for a swim, plus we don’t have towels and I’m guessing you three are going to be cold once we’re back in the car, perhaps it would make more sense to go swim in Kleinmond?” With smiles as big as the one I had in my mind, the three agreed yet again.
We parked as close to the shoreline as possible. The local municipality installed cricket-like spray lights on the one side of the lagoon, the effect of course being that looking out at the ocean you had an absolutely brilliant and clear view, but looking back towards the lagoon/parking lot/dunes you could only see bright lights and silhouettes of everything else. We left the cellphones and wallets in the car and gallantly walked down the beach. It was about 1:30 in the morning and nothing could beat that bracing sea breeze. Well, one thing was about to…
When we walked far enough down the shore, confident that we wouldn’t be giving anyone a special show (especially if they haven’t paid their TV licence – ROOFKYKERS!) we stood in a little awkward circle, casting questioning glances at one another. Being a (read: THE! Oh yeah, high-five) man, i started to disrobe – I was only wearing three articles of clothing, but thought it a good idea to turn around and, at the very least, try and create that illusion of privacy. The girls followed suit and pretty soon we had the makings of the best Timotei ad ever!
I instructed my cohorts that we’re going to hold hands, because I’m not going to run in and have them admire my manly behind, and perhaps chicken out. So, in the most gentlemanly fashion, I pointed my chin towards starlit sky, offered them my hands, and the three of us galloped into the ocean, giggling like a bunch of tweens that discovered the vibrate setting on their new cell phone.
The water washed away the underlying tension and we all started splashing around and having a grand old time, getting knocked over by the waves, laughing, splashing, admiring what there was to admire in the moonlight… Good times. Well, until Lucy got knocked over, and when I helped her up she said, “I saw something moving at our clothes”. My immediate response was a playful, “Aww Fuck off! You’re imagining things” But she insisted she wasn’t. I whipped around, purely because this nightswimming was Lucy’s idea (technically), why would she ruin it if she wasn’t genuinely concerned? I cast my gaze towards our garment pile, slowly making my way out of the water, trying to catch a glimpse of the goings on over yonder, but the spray lights made it impossible to see anything other than a huge outline.
I couldn’t figure WHY the pile looked so big, I mean, how much clothes were we wearing? It was when I finally reached the edge of the water that our clothes pile got up and made a break for it.
Without thinking, I bolted after our clothes and the little thief trying to make off with it.
Unencumbered by, well, anything, warmed up from the nice swim and lubed to the crack with seawater, I started gaining on the young vagabond. Although we didn’t run a marathon, there were a couple of thoughts going through my mind:
1. Some people stand in the darkness, afraid to step into the light (My mind sometimes makes connections in a very obvious way)
2. I wonder what my bumly bum looks like to girls behind me.
3. What the EF am I going to do if I catch this punk? Blap him? (Google it)
4. Who are those two silhouettes he’s running towards? /Valkoog
5. Screw my belongings, I just want my watch
So I screamed after him, “Please, just leave my watch!” And I’m guessing he got a fright when he heard how close I was and dropped the pile. I quickly stopped to at least put a pair of pants on before continuing the pursuit, but as I turned to pick up the pile, Lucy SHOT past me like a lightning bolt, obviously intent on whooping a mini motherfucker’s ass. “WAIT!” I shouted, not knowing who the other two individuals ahead were. Thankfully, she did. Drew and Cameron came jogging up and we started to rifle through our shit to make sure we had everything. I looked up to see that there was no one on the beach anymore, not the short-legged burglar or his accomplices on the edge of the lagoon.
“Are you guys ok? Do you have everything?” I asked and surprisingly, my companions were ok. I’m guessing it’s probably because they were still running on Zombie fumes which softened the blow. We could find nearly all our belongings, save Cameron’s watch and glasses, Lucy’s WonderBra and one of Drew’s sandals. Remember, we went out, so it’s the fancy bra and the pretty sandals.
We walked up and down our tracks, eventually kicking up one of the sandals, when we saw a man with a flashlight approaching from the parking lot. We were deeper in and the spray lights caught him, we could see he didn’t really pose a threat, so we continued with our search at what was slightly after two in the a.m. The lone traveller from the parking lot walked up to us, “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re looking for something, can I help?” he asked politely “Sure” I said, “We’re looking for a watch and a WonderBra”.
“A watch and a… A WonderBra?” he asked, probably checking his hearing like I did an hour ago “Ja, a wonderbra. It’s a long story”
Before long, we found the WonderBra and decided to do the ol’ heel-toe out of there. We laughed our asses off on the way home in the realisation that this is a story that will be told for years to come. I mean, what if that little creep got away with our clothes? The car keys? How would we get home? Sure, it’s only 2km from the beach to our house, but doing that naked at 2:30am? Not so sure that was an option.
We all slept peacefully that night, all’s well that ends well, after all. And again, i think the Zombie helped…
We never found the watch though. I think the ocean claimed that for a prize, the price for our debauchery. A price we happily paid.
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1: Babbie, short for Babelas or Ababelas, Afrikaans word for “Hangover”
2: Jollie Patrollie – Having a party or a good time.
3: Koeldrank – Soft drink / cold drink.
4: Die Burger – a daily newspaper in the Western and Eastern Cape.
5: Because I’m going to smack you!
6: Die Valkoog – The Falcon Eye!
