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| (Original undedited image via LA Times.com) |
By now, regular readers of my blog (yes, I see you five in the back row there) will know that we have a guest cottage that we rent out. It brings in a penny or two over the short summer season and brings entertainment, in the form of unconventional tenants, for the rest of the year.
You might remember our last tenant Jason, a.k.a Druid of the Magical Herb, who somewhat corrupted my view of people who are looking for an impermanent abode. But such is life that there are bills to pay, children to educate, and caviar to be purchased for the dogs.
As usual, I recently posted an advertisement on various platforms for the cottage. As I’m sure you can guess, people who are interested in temporary accommodation are normally between something: jobs, cities, marriages, girlfriends, crimes… that sort of thing. This, surprisingly, doesn’t deter me in any way. I kind of like hearing people’s stories and how they end up staying with us.
We’ve had high-powered executives (OK, one of them did flood the cottage, but it wasn’t on purpose. He’s now a Buddhist somewhere out in the country, I think.) We’ve had writers who don’t write, we’ve had documentary makers who don’t vacuum (like, not even once, in 6 months), we’ve had couples who do shedloads of washing, turning the cottage décor into “Chinese laundry chic” (pre-drought, you understand). And we’ve also had an unusually high number of single guys whose girlfriends insist on them securing the lease – and then break up with them literally the week after they move in (which is just weird, if you ask me. Could there be something in the ether down there?)
But this year, someone famous came to check out the cottage. Someone who also happens to be one of my all-time hero writers.
I should backtrack here a bit. For the longest time – probably most of my life – I didn’t know that there was such a thing as “humour writing” or a job called “humour columnist”. Sure, I’d read my share of Laughter is the Best Medicine in the Reader’s Digest magazine, but I don’t think I’d really read any actual humour columns.
But then, all of a sudden, in probably the same month, I discovered Dave Barry and said hero writer (I’ll call him Al. Al Lias). A whole world of writing possibilities opened up to me. One where things like made-up words were possible. Where on-point grammar wasn’t the point. Where you could cuss if you like. Where research was optional (eschewed, even!) And where you could write with your tongue planted firmly in your cheek.
Dave Barry is American, and primarily known for his colonoscopy piece that did the rounds (and continues to do so, years after the fact). His other writing is just as hilarious but people just seem to find colonoscopy writing funny on the whole. Al-my-writing hero, is a SAFA and is both eloquent and mirthiless (see what I did there?) with his humour. He slays at satire and is a master of Irony. My brother introduced me to Al’s writing and I’ve never looked back. In fact, I think for the longest time, I thought he was the ONLY humour columnist in the country (that’s if you don’t count Barry Ronge’s movie reviews – but I’m still not sure whether Barry meant to be funny or not.)
Anyway, back to Al. He messaged me while we were driving back from Cape St. Francis (Mmm. St. Cape Francis in Winter. Now that’s a blog for another day.) Had I not been prone to vast amounts of napping in the car, I would have taken the time to Google Al before we met. Also, I just wasn’t arsed to do my homework. I figured I’d just suss him out when we met. (After all, my track record with snap judgments has been smashing up till now.)
The minute we met, he looked very familiar to me. Shit. I should have researched (i.e. stalked him on social media) him. Did I know him from the gym? Was he a parent at one of my kids’ schools? Did he work at AP Jones? My mind computing slowly - as it tends to do - I flicked through my mental Rolodex, hoping that it would magically stop at the right place and that the identity of the person would jump out at me.
We exchanged polite conversation. It came to light that Al had read my blog when he said that I had no need to worry as he was “no Jason in the weed growing department”. I have to say, sometimes being a writer is a very shy business. On one hand, you want people to read your stuff, and on the other had it horrifies you that they will, incases they think you write like a doos*(or worse, that they think you actually ARE a doos). I was struck with a case of the latter. It was when Al said “I dabble in writing myself a bit” that I suddenly realised who it was that I was talking to.
I immediately become flustered and over-animated and a little sweaty and it should also be said that I regretted my choice of outfit (stinky gym tights and a scruffy hoodie that literally has stains on it from the ’80s). I felt super self-conscious about my orthodontics and tried to hide them as I talked and smiled - which just made me look constipated, I’m sure. (Side note: I’m going to start telling people that I have orthodontics because I got into a really bad bar fight which wrecked my teeth. Far more interesting than the truth.)
Lucky for me, Al is nice-in-real-life and didn’t seem to notice me being especially weird and overly chatty. Of course, he may be writing rude stuff about me as we speak. But you know what, I’ve had that coming because we all know that writers deal with weird stuff and weird people by writing about them.
Al didn’t lease the cottage. He found somewhere nicerer I think – somewhere with a less weird lessee. I’m a bit bummed to be honest, because when I discovered who he was, I confess that my mind ran away with me a little.
I imagined an exciting life where Al and I would go shopping in charity stores for jackets with elbow patches together. We’d go away on humour-writing weekends, drink loads of wine and whiskey, and come up with made-up words. He’d be Hemingwayesque and I’d be the literary equivalent of Melissa McCarthy. I’d take up smoking and he’d make tea. He’d be my new best writing friend and we’d go to Havana and pretend to speak Spanish. And we’d laugh and we’d laugh.
Damn that it’s not true. Still, there’s always next year.
*doos: South African slang for idiot. (Not as bad as Cee U Next Tuesday but worse than poephol.**)
**poephol: South African slang for a harmless idiot. (Not as bad as arsehole but worse than silly-billy.)
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