Signatures later

I recently joined an outreach to a small town, Bulembu, in Swaziland. Few people know this but Swaziland was named after me. Spain was also named in my honor but they don’t have many outreaches this time of year and the Spanish tend to invade my personal space. I once had to kill a small poodle to illustrate the importance of respecting my personal space. Some of the Spanish animal activists took offense when I killed the poodle and inquired into the authenticity of me being the founder of Spain. Today this inquiry is better known as the Spanish Inquisition. There is a similar story about me and the role I played in the Boston Tea Party but I don’t like to go into it, lets just say I avoid playing golf in thunderstorms.

When we got to Bulembu we pitched our tent and met some people. Some of the people I met I can’t remember and others I do, which is the same as saying “people tend to age” or “the word telephone is French for you might sound nice but I won’t make a move, you could be underage”. During this time my suspicion in the current youth of the world grew somewhat. There is a couple of reason why I am making this statement. The main reason is the fact that these people do not recognize me for the person that I am. There is a couple of other reasons like most of them wear such little clothes that if they bump into each other sooner or later one is to fall pregnant. For the remainder of this piece of literary marvel I will only discuss the lacking recognition I receive when meeting a person for the first time, mainly persons of the female variety.

My suspicion began the first day of the trip when I met a girl from Bloemfontein and she said that I look like a doctor. I went with it claiming my choice in career was due to my lack of playing doctor-doctor as a child. I spoke of other things as well. She did not respond in the expected way, in other words she hadn’t erupted in spontaneous bouts of applause after spending ten minutes with me.

After the awkward situation I realized that I seriously needed to figure out this first impression debacle. I was waiting for a certain set of circumstances to rear its head so that I might explore the apparent shortsightedness of these twenty-somethings. The situation presented itself the following day.

The person, or shall we say guinea fowl I met was a girl from Canada.

Yes, Canada, as in we may speak like the Americans, except with a little “eh” at the end of each sentence. More than that we live more to the north so that we might have the chance to host the Winter Olympics in ’76, ’88 and 2010. We also speak French for no apparent reason.

She was of dark complexion, had dark hair and a cute smile. I initially wanted to adopt her. She wasn’t what you would call unattractive. Well, you could call her unattractive if it was opposite day and that is only in another three months time. The last time I was the guest speaker at The Opposite Day Awards Ceremony (TODAC) we had a wonderful time laughing at each other as we threw up in our plates. For those wondering what the last sentence is all about – the opposite of eating is throwing up.

So at the first meeting I called her atLeigh (@Leigh). She is responsible for the Twitter page of the Community and so I thought it would be hilarious to call her atLeigh. I was so not funny, according to her, that I actually heard her say to the person next to her that loosing a limb is funnier or even the time when her family got stuck in a blizzard and they had to kill her puppy for sustenance was funnier. Suffice to say she was either a bit on the slow side or she was playing hard to get. Just for the record I have met girls who played the hard to get card with me but that façade dropped the moment I mentioned my abs.

The next day I was planning on going on a photographic expedition of the town. I am a photographer of note. It has been said that I am as good with a camera as Napoleon was with losing the battle for sanitation. I am referring to the Battle of (correct term is “for”) Waterloo.

Anyway I came across the Canadian planning to do the same. (Here I am referring to the photographic expedition not the battle for sanitation. I believe she would lose that battle. She doesn’t have the same spunk as Napoleon) This was the opportunity I was waiting for. I could now determine the time it takes for people of this general age to realize who I am.

As we started our journey around the town I increased my charm level to a very responsible 20% and proceeded to speak to her. I started off with the standard questions. She was somewhat reluctant to answer most of them so then I moved on to my forte, statements and observations.

Here follows a list of some of the observations and statements I made as our journey progressed:

• The main reason for these high temperatures is the sun
• The fashion police started of as an NGO
• I met Paul McCartney recently and he admits to using Botox
• The Spanish Inquisition was a bitch
• I am a partner in a hugely successful kite company. Our motto is “kites because dikes can’t fly”
• I am the most dangerous man in the Free State and I am not even in the Free State (this usually works like a charm, see Dating Tips)

During this time she did not break. I felt the challenge had been laid down and I would rise to meet this challenge no matter what.

We continued our journey and took pictures of people and trees and I took some of her rear. I think she took some of mine as well, I did not notice it but I knew it was the case when I realized at a later stage that she is a ninja. Ninjas are renowned for their sneakiness and baggy clothes.

I then asked her to marry me in the pasture. She started laughing and I could she by the hopeful shimmer in her eyes she wanted to consummate the marriage there and then. To avoid grass burn I insulted her. I told her she was fat and that from then on in I would refer to her as The Fat One. Although the flame in her eyes dimmed a bit I could see that even the new nickname she would treasure as it would be a tie she would have with me. Wanting to impress me she started calling me Beautiful, which would later evolve to an affectionate Beaut. Apart from the feminine nature of the nickname I realized that her eyes had finally opened up to who I am.

I would like to bring to the attention of the reader that although I am hugely attractive and other impressive things I also sometimes get misplaced. Do not worry if someone does not like you immediately and do not judge a book by it’s cover. If there is one thing to take from my experience it is that if you want people to get to know you go to Swaziland and propose in a pasture.

(Note from the author: Swaziland and Spain will soon be acknowledged as colonies of the PRC or People’s Republic of Cobus)