“A blind date!” I shrieked. “You’ve gotta be kidding, Kay. I don’t do blind dates!”
But my friend Kay wasn’t kidding. “Please, Lebo? It’s my cousin from Durban. I promised. He’ll take you to a fancy restaurant.”
Well, that tempted me. A little. “So what’s he like? He’d better be drop-dead gorgeous. I only do drop-dead gorgeous!”
“I don’t know. Last time I saw him he was a snotty-nosed kid of eleven with a bandage round his head because he fell out a tree. But he’s twenty-six now. I’m sure he’s improved.”
“What if he hasn’t? Forget it, Kay! I don’t do duds – I only do studs!”
But once my friend has an idea in her head, nothing will shift it. Next day Kay arrived with a pile of papers. Across the top was written EXIT STRATEGY in bright red letters.
“I printed this off the internet, Lebo. It tells you how to escape if your blind date is going badly.”
I wasn’t about to read all that! “Okay, Kay. So summarise. What do I do if your cousin is a dud?”
So she summarised. If the blind date is bad news, I must go to the Ladies cloakroom and SMS her. Then once I was back at the table with the dud, she would phone me on my cellphone. She would tell me there was a ‘family emergency’. Like, my kid sister had broken her ankle and I was needed at home. Immediately.
“See? Easy! Then you tell my cousin: ‘Sorry, there’s a family emergency’. And then you exit stage left! No problem, Lebo.”
“Just make sure your cellphone is switched on!” I warned her.
Thank goodness I warned her. Her cousin from Durban was a Dud De Luxe! OUCH!
Lucky – that was his name. Not very ‘lucky’ for me! We met at a seafood restaurant and he ordered prawns. Prawns! With their heads and tails and spiky little legs still attached! Is there anything more disgusting? Even if you grew up beside the sea in Durban – that’s still no excuse! I could barely swallow my fish, watching him rip the prawn shells off. And then suck stuff out their heads! DOUBLE OUCH!
He had a round, chubby face. And he was boring. He went on about life in ‘Durbs’ and all his ‘chinas’ and how ‘kif’ they were. It was definitely time for Kay’s Exit Strategy. Time to head to the Ladies and SMS her:
Gt me outa dis! Now!
But then Lucky announced: “Yeah, I’m completing my internship. Next year, I will be a qualified doctor.”
A doctor!? A doctor!? Why didn’t Kay tell me that from the start? Forget going to the Ladies cloakroom! Forget SMSing Kay, forget ‘family emergencies’ and exiting stage left! Hey, this was the best blind date ever. He wasn’t a dud! He was drop-dead gorgeous, the way only a doctor-to-be can be drop-dead gorgeous.
Hopefully Lucky and I would have many more dates! Just not at a seafood restaurant next time!
***
What do you think? Will Lebo and Lucky be seeing more of each other at different restaurants?