Look, this does not happen at the finer establishments in Cape Town, but it does happen at some of the not-so-kosher places in Cape Town. I’m talking about that lying, conniving, blackmailing person.

The rose lady.

When you are out at a club at night you have obviously had a few drinks and sometimes your defences weaken. You show some emotion and are prey for these damn flower ladies that approach you, especially when there is a girl with you.

“Excuse me would you like to buy a rose?”

“No thanks”

“But it’s for a good cause”

“Does it make Herschel girls less snobbish?”

“No you see I work for this kids home and we are currently trying to fund re constructive surgery for little Timmy”

“Why?”

“He was walking down Long Street in the city centre and was attacked by a gaggle of silverback apes”

It’s normally at this point that you are sitting there, wanting to punch this chick in the ovaries because you know you are sitting on your last ten bucks, which is going to go to this rose scam. That means you won’t be able to get that last drink, and this frustrates the life out of you.

There are Facebook groups dedicated to these ruthless animals, with names going something like “Mumble mumble the rose ladies coming”

Rose ladies: Miserable

Because you will notice as people see the devil arriving, they start intense conversations, so when she does walk past, they can brush her off and make out as though they are discusing the Kyoto Protocol.

“Yeah bud I would totally SMASH that chick over there!  I’m SO boozed…”

Guy looks over to see the rose peddlar coming. Changes his conversation:

“Yeah well we were trying to cross reference the hedge funds on the raging end of a bull market, when the anomalies were just dissected by the NASDAQ and the FTSE lost 10 points”

Rose lady walks by, missing this crowd:

“Sick I don’t think she saw us”

I mean, honestly Basil, who on God’s green earth is going to want to buy a rose at 11pm, when they are drunk out of their minds and just trying to pull some hot chick? What the hell are you going to do with a rose, IN A CLUB?

Where do you keep it? And the clubs that these rose ladies wrangle themselves into are not exactly the most romantic places anyway. We are talking about Obz, Claremont etc and so most people there don’t give a toss about being romantic. They just want to come right and a rose is not going to work. If anything a girl is going to be embarrassed by this.

Why don’t they sell useful stuff that we can use. Sell me a hot poker that I can stick in my eye. Sell me bricks. Sell me roofies.

But please don’t ever try to sell me a rose, because I will punch you.

I don’t care that little George has no arms and legs and no eyesight. And you know why I don’t care? Because little George is a made up fairytale!

I know how you operate. You walk in, looking for the weak. You zone around, looking to bite into their necks and suck the life out of them. You give some stupid story about how Johnny was born with a penis on his head and he needs surgery to remove it and attach it to the Asian kid who was born without a penis.

I know you. You’re like a spider mixing up a web of lies.

If I wanted to be a miracle worker, I would have been Mother Theresa.

But I want to be a raging alcoholic on a Friday night and I want to get some action from some hot model.

So please…

Leave me alone.

Sean Lloyd

Editor