I am including this post for two reasons – firstly because Luke thought that this story was hysterically funny, and secondly because I hope that it will serve as a warning to those of us who have an altruistic nature, occasionally to our detriment. I realize that my second reason makes this post sound fairly ominous, and so I suggest that you divert your attention to the humour of the incident.
On Saturday morning, I was running some errands for my family. I stopped at Norwood Pick ‘n Pay, and was en route to the vet where I work to pick up the kittens who were due to spend the weekend with me. The roads were almost completely deserted, on account of the annual Johannesburg mass exodus to the coast, and I pulled to a stop at the traffic light on The Avenue in Norwood. As I waited for the light to change, I glanced at a thin, middle-aged white woman, who was standing on the corner, attempting to hail a minibus taxi. She was unsuccessful, and the oncoming taxi zoomed past her, obviously taking full advantage of the quiet roads (not that taxi’s generally pay much attention to other cars anyway). I leaned forward to glance at this, and as I did so, the woman noticed me, and ran towards my car. “Maybe she’s lost, or from another country” I thought, as this would surely explain why she was standing on the side of a suburban road, trying to get a lift. She came round to the driver’s side of my car – where my window was rolled down – and politely asked if she could have a lift. Rapidly glancing at her before unlocking the passenger-side door, I concluded that she seemed harmless enough. Petite, thin and dressed in jeans and a bright pink t-shirt – to match the awful pink sunglasses that she was wearing -, she seemed to be relatively ordinary and not particularly likely to endanger my personal safety. Besides, I was only going about 500m up the road, as I assumed that I would drop her at the intersection at the top of the road. The traffic light finally changed as she got into the car and I made my way towards Grant Avenue, while she rapidly explained that her car was being repaired and that she was eternally grateful to me for giving her a lift. And then she asked if I also had R60 for her. She had only been in the car for a minute and I was now starting to wonder if this was such a good idea! My doubts continued to grow as she asked what my name was, and then declared that Candice was her favourite name - what a serendipitous occurrence! She introduced herself as Jan. By this point, I had carefully stowed my handbag behind my seat, and was silently counting the intersections until her designated drop-off point, which I decided to confirm. As it turned out, she actually wanted to be dropped off at the KFC on Louis Botha Avenue. I weighed up my options – on the down side, this was not actually on my route to the vet, but on the plus side, Louis Botha is quite busy, even on a long weekend, and it was only 2 minutes away. Besides, Jan was now chattering to someone on her cellphone, asking them for 150 grams of chocolate (as I began wondering whether her skeletenal frame was due to Weight Watchers – or possibly anorexia) and so I kept driving. Having finished her call, she turned to thank me once again, although I noticed that despite Candice being her favourite name, I was now being called Kim. I also noticed a somewhat alcoholic aroma wafting from her. Counting the minutes until I could drop her off, I pulled onto Louis Botha, and decided to compromise by dropping her off at the BP Garage, which is about 100 metres from the KFC, as I concluded that I had done my good deed for the day. Pulling into a side road, she thanked me, wished me all the best for the festive season and hoped that God would bestow his blessings on me, hugged me and alighted from my vehicle – much to my relief, especially since my handbag remained untouched.
I now vaguely remember being warned about this woman a few months ago – a warning which I obviously forgot on Saturday! It was certainly one of my less-than-sterling judgement calls – one which I plan to not repeat in a hurry, not because I’m overwhelming paranoid about my safety, but rather because I need to learn to stand up for myself and know when to say no because my gut-feel is telling me to do so and to not feel guilty about it – even if it means saying no to a random stranger named Jan. I think I shall limit my good deeds to looking after kittens and volunteering on suicide hotlines instead.
The upside (?) of this incident has undoubtedly been the amusement factor of seeing straight through someone (that “Candice/Kim” thing just reduces me to giggles) – as well as Luke now recounting to everyone how I picked up a woman on the side of the road! For the record (just in case he tells you this story), she was not a prostitute (despite the unfortunate dress sense) – or at least, I didn’t stick around to find out! The fact that she asked me for money will be ignored…
On Saturday morning, I was running some errands for my family. I stopped at Norwood Pick ‘n Pay, and was en route to the vet where I work to pick up the kittens who were due to spend the weekend with me. The roads were almost completely deserted, on account of the annual Johannesburg mass exodus to the coast, and I pulled to a stop at the traffic light on The Avenue in Norwood. As I waited for the light to change, I glanced at a thin, middle-aged white woman, who was standing on the corner, attempting to hail a minibus taxi. She was unsuccessful, and the oncoming taxi zoomed past her, obviously taking full advantage of the quiet roads (not that taxi’s generally pay much attention to other cars anyway). I leaned forward to glance at this, and as I did so, the woman noticed me, and ran towards my car. “Maybe she’s lost, or from another country” I thought, as this would surely explain why she was standing on the side of a suburban road, trying to get a lift. She came round to the driver’s side of my car – where my window was rolled down – and politely asked if she could have a lift. Rapidly glancing at her before unlocking the passenger-side door, I concluded that she seemed harmless enough. Petite, thin and dressed in jeans and a bright pink t-shirt – to match the awful pink sunglasses that she was wearing -, she seemed to be relatively ordinary and not particularly likely to endanger my personal safety. Besides, I was only going about 500m up the road, as I assumed that I would drop her at the intersection at the top of the road. The traffic light finally changed as she got into the car and I made my way towards Grant Avenue, while she rapidly explained that her car was being repaired and that she was eternally grateful to me for giving her a lift. And then she asked if I also had R60 for her. She had only been in the car for a minute and I was now starting to wonder if this was such a good idea! My doubts continued to grow as she asked what my name was, and then declared that Candice was her favourite name - what a serendipitous occurrence! She introduced herself as Jan. By this point, I had carefully stowed my handbag behind my seat, and was silently counting the intersections until her designated drop-off point, which I decided to confirm. As it turned out, she actually wanted to be dropped off at the KFC on Louis Botha Avenue. I weighed up my options – on the down side, this was not actually on my route to the vet, but on the plus side, Louis Botha is quite busy, even on a long weekend, and it was only 2 minutes away. Besides, Jan was now chattering to someone on her cellphone, asking them for 150 grams of chocolate (as I began wondering whether her skeletenal frame was due to Weight Watchers – or possibly anorexia) and so I kept driving. Having finished her call, she turned to thank me once again, although I noticed that despite Candice being her favourite name, I was now being called Kim. I also noticed a somewhat alcoholic aroma wafting from her. Counting the minutes until I could drop her off, I pulled onto Louis Botha, and decided to compromise by dropping her off at the BP Garage, which is about 100 metres from the KFC, as I concluded that I had done my good deed for the day. Pulling into a side road, she thanked me, wished me all the best for the festive season and hoped that God would bestow his blessings on me, hugged me and alighted from my vehicle – much to my relief, especially since my handbag remained untouched.
I now vaguely remember being warned about this woman a few months ago – a warning which I obviously forgot on Saturday! It was certainly one of my less-than-sterling judgement calls – one which I plan to not repeat in a hurry, not because I’m overwhelming paranoid about my safety, but rather because I need to learn to stand up for myself and know when to say no because my gut-feel is telling me to do so and to not feel guilty about it – even if it means saying no to a random stranger named Jan. I think I shall limit my good deeds to looking after kittens and volunteering on suicide hotlines instead.
The upside (?) of this incident has undoubtedly been the amusement factor of seeing straight through someone (that “Candice/Kim” thing just reduces me to giggles) – as well as Luke now recounting to everyone how I picked up a woman on the side of the road! For the record (just in case he tells you this story), she was not a prostitute (despite the unfortunate dress sense) – or at least, I didn’t stick around to find out! The fact that she asked me for money will be ignored…
2 comments:
Candice, Candice, Candice...
Firstly, I'm not entirely convinced that your new best friend, wasn't a crack-whore. :)
Secondly, the little voice in my head says that the woman was not talking about chocolate in the Cadbury's melt in your mouth sense...certainly not if she was ordering 150g of it and had the skeletal frame you described...
Your innocence is amusing... ;)
PS: My word verification word is 'undalis', a rare and expensive form of Spanish underwear...
Sigh... Oddly enough, I'm not completely convinced that she wasn't a crack whore either!
Apparently, the "chocolate" was for a gift. I have my doubts though.
I'm off to contemplate my innocence and polish my halo now. Maybe I'll buy you a pair of "undalis" next Christmas. ;)
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