I have had a few requests from indieBerries readers asking how The Warr and I met, so thought I would share this little (two part) story with you all.
Rhodes is well-known as the drinking capital of universities in South Africa and at the heart of this drinking-reputation lies the concept of the "formal-dinner". In fact this name is highly misleading since there is absolutely nothing formal about these dinners. I am guessing that "Formal Dinners" were devised by bored-male-housemates as an excuse to dress up, invite over select-females, fuel them with copious amounts of alcohol, throw in a few "exotic-party-games" and a meal (if you're lucky) in the hopes of securing aone-night girlfriend. Since these "formal dinners" were hosted by digs' -(student houses off campus), they usually involved an 'older-crowd' of people and to be invited to a Formal Dinner, especially if you were in your first or second year, was always a very exciting thing.
Formal Dinners always have a theme. In my time at Rhodes, I have been to -
Seaside Formals dressed as a fisherman
90's Formals dressed as Sister Act
Cowboys and Indians formals dressed as a Cowgirl
Casino Royale formals dressed as sassy-lady-gambler
Rumbling Jungle Formals dressed as an antelope
Valentines' Formals dressed "red-white, short & tight"
Child's play Formals dressed as a three year old
Movie Star Formals dressed as Tinkerbell
But the night I met my future-husband-to-be was at a Trailer Park Trash Formal, dressed as... Trailer Trash. The student digs hosting this formal dinner consisted of five guys. Their living room was "decorated" trailer park style with old newspapers, black bags, empty beer bottles, cardboard boxes and broken crates and doors. The housemates:
L-R: Murray, Greg, Warren, Malcolm (behind Warren) and Mitch.
Now the thing about Formal Dinners is that you are usually not told who your partner is until you arrive at the Formal Dinner and are seated next to "your date". It is usually the housemates who (secretly) invite a partner for each-other - so more often than not, everyone (apart from those who are already a dating-couple) are surprised at the dinner table.
I was invited by Murray Anderson Ogle, a Journalism and Media Studies student (specialising in photography) who was about two years ahead of me at Rhodes. Following from usual Formal Dinner Protocol, I assumed that since Murray was the one who had invited me, he would definitely not be my date since he would have invited me for one of his housemates. My girl-friends and I spent ages trying to figure out via processes of elimination who my date could be, but the sneaky digs had tricked us and each of the boys had invited their own date.... So I sat down at the Trailer Trash Dinner with my date, Muur.
Now as the festivities went on, everyone in the house became more and more intoxicated fun. My partner was actually having such a good time, that he ended up on the other end of the house semi-naked in the bathroom "sleeping off the fun".
During the 'dinner' part of the evening, I had been sitting between two very hungry boys - who had golf-balled me and secretly stolen my food while I was consuming my drink. (That's not very nice). Anyway... as you do when the night is getting late and you've been drinking and Greg and Muur have stolen your food, you go on a mission to find some feastings -
I snuck into the kitchen -
It didn't work really.
Fortunately Warren took pity on my grumbling tum
share?
no guy.
(ps. the photos you are about to see are very old and revolting. We don't really look like this now.)
Rhodes is well-known as the drinking capital of universities in South Africa and at the heart of this drinking-reputation lies the concept of the "formal-dinner". In fact this name is highly misleading since there is absolutely nothing formal about these dinners. I am guessing that "Formal Dinners" were devised by bored-male-housemates as an excuse to dress up, invite over select-females, fuel them with copious amounts of alcohol, throw in a few "exotic-party-games" and a meal (if you're lucky) in the hopes of securing a
Formal Dinners always have a theme. In my time at Rhodes, I have been to -
Seaside Formals dressed as a fisherman
90's Formals dressed as Sister Act
Cowboys and Indians formals dressed as a Cowgirl
Casino Royale formals dressed as sassy-lady-gambler
Rumbling Jungle Formals dressed as an antelope
Valentines' Formals dressed "red-white, short & tight"
Child's play Formals dressed as a three year old
Movie Star Formals dressed as Tinkerbell
But the night I met my future-husband-to-be was at a Trailer Park Trash Formal, dressed as... Trailer Trash. The student digs hosting this formal dinner consisted of five guys. Their living room was "decorated" trailer park style with old newspapers, black bags, empty beer bottles, cardboard boxes and broken crates and doors. The housemates:
L-R: Murray, Greg, Warren, Malcolm (behind Warren) and Mitch.
Now the thing about Formal Dinners is that you are usually not told who your partner is until you arrive at the Formal Dinner and are seated next to "your date". It is usually the housemates who (secretly) invite a partner for each-other - so more often than not, everyone (apart from those who are already a dating-couple) are surprised at the dinner table.
I was invited by Murray Anderson Ogle, a Journalism and Media Studies student (specialising in photography) who was about two years ahead of me at Rhodes. Following from usual Formal Dinner Protocol, I assumed that since Murray was the one who had invited me, he would definitely not be my date since he would have invited me for one of his housemates. My girl-friends and I spent ages trying to figure out via processes of elimination who my date could be, but the sneaky digs had tricked us and each of the boys had invited their own date.... So I sat down at the Trailer Trash Dinner with my date, Muur.
Warren on the other hand had invited his date... Kelly.
We don't know too much else about this Kelly Character.
that's fine by me.
The evening was fun as formal dinners usually are - we played some epic Trailer Park Games- including "golf-balling" (which means that if someone is sneaky enough to drop one of the golfballs lying on the table into your drink - you must consume its contents - the drink, not the golfball), Smartie-races and as you can see from the first pic - Murray and I had to feed each-other custard blindfolded. As you would at any normal formal dinner, right? right.
Along with the Trailer Park Trash Theme - The boys served KFC as their main meal.
(Above is Malcom [Bloggs] with the Kentucky Bucket...)
During the 'dinner' part of the evening, I had been sitting between two very hungry boys - who had golf-balled me and secretly stolen my food while I was consuming my drink. (That's not very nice). Anyway... as you do when the night is getting late and you've been drinking and Greg and Muur have stolen your food, you go on a mission to find some feastings -
I snuck into the kitchen -
I spotted a half empty box of extra KFC on the kitchen table and made a bee-line for it
- so incredibly delighted with my find!
I was just about to tuck into the familly size KFC box
I was just about to tuck into the familly size KFC box
when
I heard an angry voice from behind me -
It was Warren.
(We don't know what had happened to Warren's date at this stage of the evening.
Nevermind.)
Nevermind.)
Anyway he did not look very happy that I had snuck into his Kitchen.
um.....
I tried to hide.
It didn't work really.
boys - they love their chicken.
Fortunately Warren took pity on my grumbling tum
share?
So we stood awkwardly in drunken silence while we noshed greasy KFC chicken out the bucket.
It was one of those real romantic first encounter stories.
I knew there was something I liked about this guy
no guy.
But anyway, his house, his chicken, his rules.
It really was
Warren also says this is where we had our first kiss
(I'm not convinced)
me + chicken = trailer trash
And so we had our first encounter
at a Trailer Trash Formal Dinner,
in the dirty digs kitchen,
over KFC
as someone else's date.
* * * Part Two coming soon * * *
