Cecil, Since everyone in the following is happily married now, here's my entry. -----------------------------------
Picture yourself as a teenager in Dar-es salaam, Tanzania in the 1970's, where the postal service only delivered mail to your P.O. Box. And at that, they delivered the mail when they choose to do so. In those days, if any of us had romantic feelings towards a woman of our own age, we would test the waters by sending the woman a hand made Valentine card, but one that was signed with a nomme-de-plume. The nomme-de-plume would give the recipient a pretty good, but not a definitive indication, of who sent the card. What usually followed was that the next time you met the recipient, if she was interested, she would casually mention that she heard that you also went by the name, say "Ping Pong." Once you got that kind of an opening, the rest was easy......... The not so easy part was getting the card to the recipient on Valentines day. As mentioned before, the Post Office service was erratic. The only way to assure that your intended would get your card on the 14th, was to slip the card under her door on the 13th night. This was no easy feat. First you had to wait till all the lights went off in her parents apartment. Next you had to guess how long it took for everyone in the apartment to fall asleep. Then you had to try to silently sneak up the stairs, unnoticed, to slip your card under her door. More often than not, more than one Goan family lived on the same apartment block. There was a good chance you would bump into some of the Goan neighbours on the way up or down. If the person you bumped into was a generation older, they would ask, "How's Daddy and Mummy" :-) and they would also ask you what you were doing there in the middle of the night. More embarrassing was to bump into a neighbour who was a few years older than you and who knew exactly what you were doing there at that time of the night. Such a person would then tell all his friends where he saw you on the night of the 13th, and what you were doing. Now, most embarrassing of all, was to pass by another Goan of your age on your way up/down. At first, I used to wonder why that guy was at that building at that time of the night. Later on, I came to realize that, "Hey! that idiot may have been dropping off a card under the same door that I went too." :-( In those days, I drove a beach buggy. On the 13th, my friends would ask me to take them to where they wanted to drop off their card. As my car was very distinctive, we would have to park the car two streets away, walk to the apartment block, hang around about 10 minutes (to let anyone on the stairs ample time to leave the building) and then sneak up and slip the card under the door. The problem was, sometimes my friend's courage deserted them at the last minute. They would then beg me to go upstairs and do the drop off for them. On the last drop off I made for someone else, the following happened: At the stroke of mid-night, I had to silently feel my way up four floors in a stairwell that was lit with zero bulbs. It was pitch dark as I bent to slowly slip the card under the door. As I almost completed the job, I began to feel that the card was being ejected. Before I could realize what was happening, the door burst open and two brothers caught hold of me. I quickly began to explain that I was only doing a drop off for someone else. They looked at the signature, told me to keep quite, and said that they were sure I was the same "Ping Pong" that they wanted to catch as I was bothering their sister for an entire year. It took me ten frightful minutes to realize that the brothers were just having fun............ Mervyn2.0 Toronto ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
