MEDIEVAL NIGHTS AND MY LEAST FUN IN SOUTH AFRICA

Most of our memories from South Africa are positive. However, one stands out in my mind as the least amount of fun that I had while there. It started with some wise ass in the office deciding that it would be fun to have a family wife outing on a weekend. It would be held, in order that everyone got to know everyone else. I quickly said “sounds good but I’m not available that weekend”. End of story right? Not when you live with ol Bubbaloo, it’s not. Well she got wind of the impending event and told me we were definitely attending.

I just hung my head and muttered “Ay Ay sir”. Well I might have said that under my breath, but I meant to mutter it. From this point, things start to go sideways. First of all they have to put the office Kumbaya King in charge of organizing it. You know the guy, we all had one, in the classroom or office. “Let Me, Let Me, Wasn’t that a great speech, Oh I’m so happy to work for these great great people, should we all join hands now”. I think you can recognize this guy. Well anyone who knows me, well knows my opinion of the “office singalong”. Hate is far too tame of a word. Anyway that should set the tone of our first office get together.

It is getting later in the afternoon and time to get ready. I have just spent one of my days off, pissed and apprehensive about what is coming. Ol’ Bubbaloo trots out my garments for the evening. Well you might say there wasn’t much to it. What it appeared like was a pair of ballerina type leotards (green), a small doughnut looking thing (which apparently was a skirt, a see thru tight red bodice and a dumb looking red pirates type hat. “No way” says I “this is where I draw the line”. Her response “OH yeah you will, if you ever want to crawl back in the same bed as me!” My response to that, is all rehearsed and what comes out is “Ok I’ll do it this once but never again”.

I go around the corner and roundly curse my self out for being a weak kneed, lily livered dog. This, for the fortieth time in this relationship. First things first, I get those leotards and like a sausage skin made for a 100 pound sausage, I slowly peel it onto a 220 pound frame. Get the mental image? Next a skirt with an opening about 12 inches in diameter. Geezus one of my butt cheeks is 12 inches by itself. I squirm into this. I now look like someone has taken the tightest rubber band ever and snapped it around the middle of a 220 pound sausage. Top it off with a red sparkly, sequinned see through, that stopped about where my first gut roll started, and you get the picture. Finally, a dork hat on top of it all, and what else could add to my humiliation.

Nothing right? Just a minute, enter Ron with a big old shit eating grin on her face and her mouth just waiting to spew some abuse on me. I stop her in her tracks and tell her “one word, just say one word and you are grounded forever”. She thinks about it, turns around, and to this day the sound of her laughter haunts me to my very soul.

Time to go and I’m in a fury. Ron now has Ange laughing at me also. This is my family. What can I expect from strangers. The medieval castle is located a bit out of town in a private setting. Down a lonely road out in the veld. I look at the map, lock the coordinates in my brain and proceed to get hopelessly lost inside of 20 minutes. We are out of town, it’s dusk, not a road sign, street sign, light or any other sign of civilization in sight. Now my maiden for the evening, dressed in full princess garb and looking quite beautiful, is raining down shite on me, too add to my misery. The last glimmer of light is now waning and I stop the car and get out to have a second look at the cursed map.

There I am, a 220 pound green sausage with a frilly skirt and sequinned blouse standing in front of the headlights trying to read the map, when around the corner comes a car. All of a sudden I hear these “wolf whistles” and ‘catcalls”, like “hey sweetie wanna ride”, “doing anything later greenlegs”, “woohoo aren’t you the sweet one” amid loud and suggestive laughter. Now I am a drained human being, a shell of a man, and major steamed at Bubbaloo, all her friends, my bad luck, the cursed map, Ron whose laughter still rings in my ears, and the car full of Afrikaners and their lewd suggestions. Ol’ Bubbaloo looks splendid of course in a very stylish pointed hat and beautiful black gown, but she just stays in the car sniggering.

Finally we arrive. Of course Bubbaloo is no longer speaking with me because of all my ranting and swearing about this cursed party. We enter and are greeted by the Kumbaya King, dressed as a king. He says “hiya you must be the jester”! I mutter something surly to him. This further endears my partner too me. We enter and are shown seats on a rough hewn wood plank bench on each side of a long long plank table. The music is “Greensleeves”, what else!

Well at least I can see that I’m not the only one that has humiliated themselves. Some of my colleagues look as ridiculous as I do. The one with the biggest mouth, who swore he was never going to that party, was there in all his spender. Dressed in his little cardboard knight armour, looking like he had just came from a first grade crafts day. They are bringing around big foaming mugs of mead (or ale) but at this time I am driving, so no mead for me. “I’ll have a glass of water please”. Now the eating starts.

The fool that organized this event had appointed himself king of the feast and sat at the head table wearing a little tinfoil crown and dispensing food, justice and his form of humour (of which he had none). Before anyone was allowed food, you had to go up to the table, bow and ask the “lord” for some meat. He then gave you some, or had you complete a task for him. Of course Bubbaloo goes up and gets a big ol’ piece of juicy meat and a blessing. She is having the time of her life. I tell her if this idiot does anything to me, I’m gonna knock him out. She is still ignoring me.

My turn arrives and the lord announces, “folk we now have the court jester here, what about a little entertainment?” This accompanied by loud cheering and shouting. Well my man he says “it is your choice of the entertainment, you can either sing, dance or tell us a funny story”. Again loud and boisterous cheering. I am seething but what can you do? I don’t even remember what I sang. It must have been good, because about two bars into it, he said ok you can sit down now. He then awards me a big old piece of meat and two boiled potatoes to naw on. The food was plain, no spice, colourless and didn’t taste all that great. I might say a little bit of mead might have helped!

Now comes the only part I found acceptable in the whole evening. It seems like there was a rule in medieval times that, because eating utensils had not yet been invented, that the ladies had to feed their masters (men), by hand. Now methinks, I can get right into this custom. So I politely turn my head towards my princess, open my mouth and what do I see? Her back. Not only does she not buy into this part of the custom, but she isn’t even speaking to me, let alone feeding me. So after a polite period of sitting with my mouth open and waiting to be served, I close it and pretend I didn’t want her to feed me anyway. Finally it was over. Deysi loved it and was raving about the fun she had. I was a little less thrilled and had recurring nightmares about it for years.

Sorry about the length but this one has been festering inside of me for 30 years. I feel better now that it is out. By the way there were no cameras allowed. If you wanted pictures, you had to purchase them from the restaurant. Thankfully, I declined. My medieval princess bought the one attached above. You can see us in the left middle of the picture. Me being nice and her with her back turned towards me.