I live in a small town that has become a big town over time. When we moved here, the equivalent of a traffic jam was two extra bicycles on the road in the morning. That was 24 years ago, and we lived another life to the one we live now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are lucky to live here as three rivers flow into one massive river, so there is still a lot of wildlife around. Our suburb is flanked by two of the incoming rivers, and the area around them has been declared a wildlife area. A huge variety of buck and zebra roam the area, and driving past them every day has kind of desensitized us to the beauty, we see but we don\u2019t see\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Troops of vervet monkeys are always in attendance, and sometimes during the winter months, they move between the houses, getting up to mischief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My story starts one morning about 20 years ago, after I had finished a night shift at the casino. My husband and I worked in different departments, but we tried to keep our shifts the same. We could travel to work in one car, have a meal together at work, and still come home to spend family time with the kids, so we went to great lengths to make sure our shifts would correspond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We came home one morning after the night shift, just in time for breakfast with the children, and then we took them to school. This was the daily ritual. We dropped them off, and as we returned home, we found some of our casino friends had popped in for a visit. This is not uncommon when working a late-night shift. Our bodies couldn\u2019t go to sleep immediately, and we would sometimes visit for a few hours, and then everybody would suddenly feel tired, and guests would go home. Our sleeping patterns were erratic, but we had been working in casinos for so long, we actually knew no other life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our house has a room with a glass-domed roof. In summer, it can get very hot, but in winter, it is just the perfect place to hang out. We made ourselves comfortable, drinking coffee and chatting away when our friends told us that they had brought their hubbly-bubbly with. I was intrigued. Never had I seen one, didn\u2019t know how it worked, and as per usual, my curiosity was in full Yvette mode, so I have to admit I instigated what came next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hubbly was set up, and I remember our friends telling us the flavor for the day was apple. Quickly, the smell of apple fumes filled the room, which I did not find unpleasant. I am asthmatic, and I have only once before tried smoking (not my finest moment), but the hubbly was fun. The problem came when my friend suggested that we try adding a little of the mother flower to it. Mother Flower \u2013 ganja, weed, dagga, whatever name suits your mood. According to them, we would enjoy our sleep after that and wouldn\u2019t be bothered by the daily sounds of the neighborhood, which inevitably played riot on our sleep patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was all for it, Christopher was not. Even today, he does not take any tablet unless it is deemed very, very, very necessary. I, on the other hand, have an enquiring mind, and without further ado, we sampled the offerings of weed and apple by sucking up the smoke and billowing it out through our nostrils. Not accustomed to smoking, I had a few splutters and sparks, but I quickly seemed to get the hang of it, and nothing could stop me now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the first initial few pulls, I was rather disappointed in the effect. There was none. Nothing. What a letdown. This just led to me puffing more ferociously, sucking that poor pipe until the little coal turned red with anger, but nothing happened. I didn\u2019t want to let my friends down, so I oohed and aahed like they did, but finally, I just gave up. My husband was sitting on the couch watching his wife with an amused expression on his face, one eyebrow curled up, but not saying a word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon, my friends packed up their little happy pipe, bid us farewell, and left. Christopher went to bed, and I pottered around the house, waiting for the time to go by so I could fetch the kids from school. Thinking back, I must have been feeling the effects of the happy pipe, but I didn\u2019t realize it then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time flew by, and the next thing I knew, I was on my way to school to collect the kids. Driving through the leafy suburbs of our quiet little town, I had to cross a main road, which was flanked by a senior school. This intersection only had a stop sign, and all was quiet as I stopped there. I knew that in an hour\u2019s time, the road would become very busy as the high school kids would be picked up by buses and taxis and parents, but for now, it was almost serene. As I stopped, I looked left, turned my head to look right, but then my brain registered that there was an abnormality on the left, so I whipped my head back to the left, and there, on the pavement, sat a huge baboon! Man, he was massive! My jaw dropped, and our eyes locked. He looked at me with such composure, his huge hands hanging by his sides, not blinking an eyelid. I, on the other hand, was a hot sweaty mess. I didn\u2019t know what to do. All I saw was his big teeth, and I knew that when the school came out, this baboon was going to pose a threat to all those kids, and the kids were going to go mad. My mind was racing, what should I do?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it dawned on me \u2013 phone the SPCA. Now bear in mind I have not moved from my spot where I had stopped. It felt like I had been there for 10 years. It also felt like the baboon was holding my gaze hostage. I couldn\u2019t break eye contact. I fumbled for my cell phone in my handbag and called the SPCA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think the conversation went something like this: \u201cSPCA, how can I assist?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHello! I want to report a problem. We have a problem on the corner of Hawthorne and Gen Hertzog by the school!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a huge baboon sitting by the stop sign..\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Silence….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPardon, what did you say… baboon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes! Yes! You must come quickly! School is about to come out, and it is going to be a war zone! I can\u2019t stay; I have to fetch my kids. Can you come?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes, no problem. We are on our way. Can I just check again? You said BABOON?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes! A huge one…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, I finally managed to break eye contact with the baboon and sped off. I didn\u2019t want to be there when the shit hit the fan. I collected my kids from school and took an alternative route home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Later that day, I got a follow-up call from the SPCA informing me that they went to the place where the baboon was spotted but could find no trace of him. They searched high and low, and the consensus was that he must have gone back towards the river. This put my troubled mind to rest, and I never gave it another thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was years later that I attended a talk on the side effects of drugs, and while I was sitting in the seminar listening to the speaker explain what takes place in your mind when you are under the influence of magic mushrooms, weed, and other drugs, I had an epiphany. WTF??? Was it or wasn\u2019t it? Thinking back to that day, it was highly unlikely that a huge baboon with blue balls was sitting on the side of a busy road staring into my eyes. Everything in me went ping! ping! ping! The hubbly, me concluding that whatever I was smoking had no effect on me, had, in actual fact, the opposite effect!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holy shit! There was no baboon… It was all a figment of a weed-induced mind. I had sent the SPCA on a wild baboon chase, and for many years, I had wondered what happened to the baboon every time I stopped at that particular crossing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 9 years later, I was a serving member on the SPCA committee, and one day, I was standing in reception when a call came through. As I was closest to the phone, I answered the call. A member of the public was reporting that a baboon had been spotted in a built-up area… I was laughing so much I had to hand the phone to somebody else to complete the call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was my first and last experience with hubbly and weed. With an overactive imagination like mine, the next sighting could have been a dinosaur. I am posing a great public risk just being myself. When adding any sort of \u2018enhancement to my personality, I become a walking atom bomb. Best we don\u2019t go there ever again…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chapter closed. Figuratively and literarily. Now I just pay my horse feed bill, and I get high (and low) too, no weeds needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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