Don't give up your day job

I may have mentioned once or twice that my friend R and I are athletes in training. Once a week we head off for a brisk walk around the local streets of South Auckland and then once a week we head off to Denny's for our carb intake of banana splits. This afternoon we worked the pavement around R's "hood" (apologies for the abbreviation but I'm from South Auckland and we're just gangtsa like that). Something I've  learned about R is that she has an abysmal sense of direction. This was evident today when we realised that we were passing the same hibiscus bush repeatedly. The autumn sun was fading fast, R's feet were throbbing (not mine of course because I'm the more sporty one) and we had completely forgotten our way home.

I disagree. If you go walking with R, one of these gadgets would come in handy :-p

Eventually we found our way to the main road. We were relieved but sore (all right, I'll admit that I was a teensy bit tired after walking around and around that hibiscus). As luck would have it, we spotted a certain courier van belonging to R's husband. Since it was dark by now, he was clearly visible in one of the shops so we thought we'd pop in and say hello. Actually, we were desperately hoping that he'd insist on driving us home because he's such a gentleman, but once we snuck up on him I instead found myself challenging him to beat us back. Although I did concede that if he should happen to see us on the street, we might allow him to pick us up. Probably not one of my better plans.

We got as far as the street corner before deciding to stop and wait for a ride from our handsome knight in the shining van. That seemed like a good idea at the time. But I hadn't counted on R not being able to recognise her husband's headlights in the dark so I found myself enthusiastically flagging every diesel vehicle headed down the main road of Papatoetoe.  Umm...anyone familiar with the main road of Papatoetoe? It hadn't occurred to me until we started to get a few filthy stares but let's just say...it wasn't a good look for two middle aged ladies to be soliciting vehicles to stop and pick us up.

A couple of "Old Tarts"

I'm not sure if I'm more offended that people might have thought that we were soliciting on a street corner, or that nobody stopped. Am I losing my appeal? Surely things haven't sagged that much? Maybe it was the trainers that we wore instead of thigh high boots.  Anyway, we did get lucky eventually because D spotted us and pulled over. Told you he's a gentleman - although I can't be certain that the rest of Papatoetoe thought that at the time...

Ahh well. Banana splits tomorrow night.

Dramatization of completely different situation.