Alabama-style nachos: spicy with a pinch of cringe
This is the first in a possible series by Y.O.
<<“To be honest, I 100% swiped right for your dog.”
As far as opening lines go, this wasn’t the worst. In fact, it was nice to be on the receiving end of an opening line at all.
“She’s been shedding like a torn pillow for the past few days so I’m glad she’s earning her keep,” I replied, coughing fur off my screen.
A week or three back, I’d come across her profile, and added a pic of me with doggo dearest to strategically cater to her bio, which delivered a similar disclaimer to her opening line. SuperSub has a gif for the occasion.
Dog treats were added to my online basket, and I headed back to the conversation.
Without objectifying, she was (is) rather gorgeous, and her bio made me chuckle.
We commenced the flirtation journey, which was so engaging that I iced a date-arrangement process with someone else I had been chatting to earlier that evening (dog!).
This could be a good weekend.
“You look familiar,” she mentions.
“I don’t know you from Adam but am glad that seems to be changing.” I didn’t say that, but wish I had.
“No, you really do look familiar. I know – you were a waiter at my cousin’s wedding a verrrry long time ago.”
As handsome and charming as the waiter undoubtedly was, ‘twasn’t I.
“I spill my tea when carrying it from kitchen to desk,” I confessed. Genuinely can’t hold my drink.
“Sure?”
Damn sure.
“Oh, wait… If you’re not the waiter, then you must be…”
*spins dramatically away from the camera
“…family.”
Um.
No.
Uh-uh.
Nope.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! WHAT?!
“Never in my life have I wished to be a waiter as much as now.”
“Are you sure?” (still me talking).
I could hear her brain whirring from miles away.
“Oh, wait, I know. Does your mom teach geography?”*
Time stood still.
[The view from her screen for about ten minutes: Y.O. is typing…]
Ten minutes later…
“My God. You really do know me.”
“Is your mom Aunty K or Aunty N?” she pressed home the advantage.
“Fuck me. Aunty K.”
Cue ten billion laughing emojis. But also, I was crying. Mostly to the heavens.
“How related are we?” I faffed around for the nearest straw.
“Related enough that I saw your mom at a family function a few weeks ago!”
“Fuck’s sakes! Which one?”
“Aunty Z’s birthday party.”
“Yeah okay. It’s disgustingly plausible that she would have gone there.”
Many more laughing emojis.
Howling with mirth and grief, I managed to blow some more fur off the screen.
“I am M’s cousin,” she informed me. M is Aunty Z’s daughter, and my (third/twice-removed?) cousin and we were rather good friends growing up, until my mom’s family moved to a different part of town. Cape Town is huge, and I am poor at staying in touch and honouring invitations. Also, these were pre-cellphone days (YES, Matty and Ginge. Those days are more than myth.)
My eyes darted frantically, searching for another straw.
“But wait! If you’re M’s cousin from her dad’s side, we might not be almost guilty of a heinous crime.”
“… I hate to have to dash your hopes.”
Jesus Christ.
“Fair disclosure, I am about to screenshot this convo and send it to M,” she gallantly gave me the heads up.
“Yeah, I am about to do the same,” I said, navigating reluctantly to a merciless WhatsApp group.
So, with our cousin and my two brothers-from-other-mothers screaming with laughter on the other ends of our respective phones, we continued our FAMILY-FRIENDLY conversation on Tinder until eventually bidding each other so long.
My full (first) cousin, upon hearing the story from me a week later, needed a few minutes to regain her composure and put her judging eyes back under their lids. “So, Y.O.,” she asked, “what have you learned from all this?”
Uh… nothing?
Life is nasty, brutish and short?
Surely not the lesson. I thought again.
“That I should maybe have gone to more of the family events that my mom tried to drag me to as a child,” I admitted.
“Mm-hmm,” she nodded, her judging eyes back in place.
Some time since that frightful Friday, we decided to meet. Put a voice to the face, as it were.
We shared nachos, wings, guffaws and our life stories. Still didn’t remember her at all but it felt like catching up with a close friend with whom you’d once made many lovely memories, in an age long since forgotten. Brilliant evening with a brilliant person.
I had a good time, too 😉
We also couldn’t resist doing the math – after bated breath and testing against control groups, we came to the replicable conclusion that we are not, in fact, related, but from entirely different lineages, simply sharing a couple of distant cousins from our unique family trees.
Hallelujah.
We danced and sang and made merry, the ball and chain around our psyches now jettisoned.
“Just to mention,” she says, with the clarity that decaf provides, “my abiding memory of you is as a 12-year-old coming home school and complaining to your mom about something. It was so cute.”
“Yeah? Which year was that?”
“2002.”
“Joke’s on you because I was 13 for the entire 2002 school year.”
“Well, 13 then!”
The moral remains. In fairness, were the roles reversed, I wouldn’t be able to see past that, either. She would have been 16-17 at the time, so I get it.
We hung out for hours and would have for even longer but for closing times being jerks.
For the record, she is even more pretty in real life. We had a grand time, and seem to have gained a friend. We had a surprising amount in common, and none were genetic. Good feels all round.
It is unlikely to go anywhere, but that’s okay. Warm fuzziness has replaced anguish, and our souls have been cleansed.
I have played rugby (a Pomsky among Rotties), studied and practiced various full contact martial arts, bowled fast at even faster bowlers, fielded at silly mid-on, gone paragliding, snorkeled with seals in one of the most Great White Shark-dense stretches of water in the world, run trails known for being mugging hotspots, bought sushi from petrol stations, picked up snakes after mistaking them for non-venomous cousins [sigh], trekked through the wilderness alone with a bag full of snacks, and walked on lonely beaches on moonless nights to bask in starlight.
Dating in your thirties is, by far, the most extreme game I’ve ever played.
*subject changed to protect dignity.
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