The Precious Jo'burg Bee.

I'm glad I packed a pair of heels. It was a last minute decision. Obviously there wasn't enough space in the bag. The Pant doesn't know how to pack light. The last time I went to Cape Town, I went for four days. And my luggage weighed 34 kgs. That's substantially more than half my weight. I had to get a personal loan to pay the excess baggage fee.

And it's not like I had excess baggage at the time. In fact, I don't think I'm an excessive excess baggage kind of girl. Really I don't.


But back to the heels. I threw them into The Travelling Companion's car at the last second. Well, not quite "threw" as much as spent fifteen minutes playing a real-life game of Tetris with said heels and The Small Size Son's innumerable toys. The car was so tight that I had Gammy Knee Syndrome upon arrival.

But the heels are with me. And I'm glad. Honest, I wasn't planning on wearing heels. I'm not the kind of girl that wears heels, like, ever. But I do collect them. So my standard peep-toe black stilettos are not the most exciting pair I could've brought with. But they were the only shoes I had on me when the decision was made. They're my emergency heels, you see. They reside full-time in my boot, alongside emergency black pashmina and emergency Carpe Diem beach bag that The Daughter and I use if I finish work early enough and the weather is kiff.

I haven't worn said heels yet. But I plan to. And not only because I have an ass and it deserves some shaking, but because Precious Jo'burg Friend and I haven't really hung out. Well we have. But we're parents, and so we suffer from Constant Interruptionitis.

Take yesterday's lunch outing, for example. We lunched outdoors at a venue that had more jumping castles and farm animals than you could shake a stick at. The kids stuck to us like proverbial shit to a poodle's ass.
The other thing this particular venue had was bees. Thousands of the buggers. They descended on us en mass such that we ran, like little girls, to management to "sort out this unacceptable situation". Now, before you start labelling Precious Jo'burg Friend and me "precious" (which we are), let me just point out that The Daughter's creme soda had six bees floating in it, and eight neatly lined up the straw.

We were promptly moved indoors. And forgotten about. The thirst became so intense that Precious Jo'burg Friend had to slide a knife (with force) between my tongue and palate and wedge the two apart. And when she did this, it sounded like planks snapping.

When The Manager (very important job, almost as important as Examinations Invigilator at large tertiary institution) eventually came over to check my vitals, he suggested that, perhaps, the swarm of bees that nearly obliterated us was, in fact, our fault. And if we'd had the foresight to order Fanta, instead of Creme Sodas, for our children, then we might have enjoyed our lunch outdoors where we would have been looked after by our waitress. Fanta, he explained, has less sugar than Creme Soda and also it's green - a colour which bees prefer to orange.

My my. Don't you learn something new every day? This Jo'burg breed of bee is more precious than I am. Won't drink Fanta. Doesn't like the colour. My my.

So Precious Jo'burg Friend and I have decided to go on a night outing. Because both bees and children will be sleeping. And the latter will be babysat. And us girls? We'll be precious and oozing with super effing radness.