This story details a true encounter way back when I had just turned 21 and was cocky, confident and bullet-proof.
My mother, the fashion buyer for the main department store (the only one) in Maseru, Lesotho, had been on a buying trip to Johannesburg and had gone to a movie to kill some time. In the queue she had got talking to a friendly woman in her early forties.
She took the woman up on an offer to come for tea with her and her 18-year-old daughter at her apartment and in a short time they became firm friends.
I was working in Bloemfontein at the time and when my mum passed through on her way home she mentioned meeting this woman with a very attractive daughter. She said they would love to meet me and that if I was ever in Johannesburg I should look them up.
With this information filed away I got on with my life until about five months later I was invited to a wedding in Johannesburg and needed a place to stay.
I pulled out the number my mum had given me and phoned the woman (Ruth), explaining who I was. She was delighted to hear from me and offered to put me up for the weekend.
I duly arrived early Friday evening and was made most welcome by this slightly overweight, big-breasted, very attractive woman. Her daughter Zelda, she said, had gone down to the coast for the weekend and laughed when I obviously registered disappointment. "You can meet her next time. In the meantime I'll take you out for dinner and then show you the sites of the 'big smoke' on Sunday after your wedding."
We went out for dinner and told each other our life story. She had been a divorcee for 10 years and although she had dated she had not found anyone she wanted to start with all over again. She said she was lonely but didn't want the bother of a man. "In the long run they are just too much trouble."