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Age sneaks up on us all at some point


I just realised that getting older has a way of sneaking up on the best of us and that despite our best intentions to never act or look middle aged, it catches you eventually.  Case in point, where this past Friday evening was spent at a venue called “Weiveld” watching a Francois van Coke show for a fortieth birthday party. 

I am of the age now where nothing perks me up faster than a Friday afternoon blow-dry before I go out on weekends.  Bliss having someone else blow-dry my hair.  To say that I have a lot of hair is like saying that Kim Kardashian has a sizeable bum.  It is a blatant understatement.  People often ask me if I have hair extensions and a trip to the hairdresser takes me longer than most.  I have lots and lots of thick hair, and it needs to be tamed with blow-dryers and other instruments of torture.  To add insult to injury, Luka has lots and lots of hair requiring instruments of torture too and it just kills me that I now need to do multiple blow-dries in one week and the amount of money we spend on shampoos, serums and masks is rather scary. 

So this Friday I go for a lovely blow-dry at my favourite Dry bar in Sandton and I end up with glorious beach waves, and my hair smells divine and I am just so relieved that I don’t need to be in charge of one half of the blonds in our household’s hair for just a while.  And we go to Weiveld…and everyone is twenty years younger than me and smoking.  In other words they are Gerhard and I, just twenty years ago.  Smoking without a care in the world.  And they reek, and they are all a tad tipsy, so not only are they giving me black lung, and stinky hair, but I am absolutely petrified that one of them will burn a hole in my rather expensive outfit by waiving those damn dangerous lit cigarettes around like fairy wands!

I felt old, I wanted to warn them about the danger of black lung.  I wanted to scrub some of the make up off the girls, when you are a mere twenty you should aim for a dewy youthful appearance and you should leave the heavy stuff for the older girls like me.  You do not need twenty coats of mascara as your eyes are glorious and you don’t have any lines that you need to draw the attention away from.

Next up, the man bun, no man!  You are wearing khaki’s and you have a man bun, you probably spend more time blow-drying your bun than you should.  Spend some time in the sun, ask some girls out for coffee, spend your free time wisely and please for heaven’s sake don’t wear your hair in half a bun, buns are for girls, please guys, go and get a haircut.  Your mum is sobbing in her pillow tonight because despite her best endeavours and taking you to the barber for crewcuts all throughout your school going years, you now rather go to expensive Dry bars in Sandton where middle aged women get their hair done before weekend shenanigans. 

When the bouncer came shuffling along, unable to walk like a normal person because he is trying his best to flex all the muscles that he could muster from his Men’s Health magazine telling us he needs to frisk us just in case we try to sneak in our own drinks, I just giggled.  Do we really look like we need to smuggle in tot packs to a show, with our freshly blow-dried hair, our designer jeans and expensive shoes, our perfect M.A.C. smokey eye, because when you spend as much money at the M.A.C. counter as I do, you get complimentary make up sessions.  Anyhow, we got frisked.

All in all we actually spent a rather enjoyable night with the Youth, we all at least love Francois van Coke and his band, “Die Gevaar”.  We had a couple of drinks after the show and ended up getting in bed at 1am on Saturday.  Just to get up again at 5am on the same Saturday, because unlike the Youth we could not sleep late and wake up in time for lunch or brunch.  Unlike the Youth we have RESPONSIBILITIES.  We had to take our eldest to play club cricket at a nearby town called Brits, or at least Gerhard did that.  As for me and my smelly stinky hair, I participated in mass exercise with the Johannesburg BBG girls, we did burpees and mountain climbers for fun, yes, for fun.  If you don’t know who Kayla Itsiness and her army of 10 million people is, google, and go and try it.  As for the bouncer with the Men’s Health muscle, you might be better of exercising with your girlfriend and doing the 12 week bikini body guide challenge. 

I also had to take Luka to a tea party where a number of other five and six year olds caused havoc, all this time, the Youth were still sleeping off the effects of their attendance of the Francois van Coke show.  So Gerhard and I went to bed on Saturday at 8pm, and we slept until 7am on Sunday and then we felt half human, a quiet Sunday at home sorted us out.  I only managed to wash and blow dry my smelly hair last night, along with Luka’s, two blow dries on one day, which of course meant that I had to go to bed early, it is a vicious cycle I tell you, vicious.  The worst part is that someone pointed out that Liam and his friends will soon be the Youth, nine more years to be exact, and I am not prepared for Liam to be a smoking smelly Youth with a man bun, so my hope and prayer is that crewcuts become cool again in the next nine years, for boys, not girls, so until then, happy blow-drying fellow middle aged women of South Africa. 




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