Kids, by now you know that I have a penchant for embodying my literary hero Bridget Jones in a spectacular fashion.

While I knew that I would never live down the flashing incident at Beta Beach or having to answer awkward family questions about the lack of a man in my life, I thought that I could at least minimize the disastrous run-ins with strangers.

Sigh…

Here’s a look at why Ms Jones and I were kindred spirits in the spring of 2016:

Lying to a preacher man:

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned …ok, so I have never been to confession but if I ever do, I solemnly swear that I will never, EVER lie to a man of the cloth again as I did on a sunny September afternoon.

The holy man in question was a layman deacon and, unfortunately for me, the My CiTi bus driver who had a tendency to speak the word of God to me whether I wanted him to or not.

We had had a previous run-in a month earlier when I had set him straight about me not following the Islamic way and him trying to bully me into coming to church with him – obviously I refused. Have I mentioned I had major commitment issues, especially when it came to religion?

On this particular spring day, I firmly told Brother Simon that I did not want to speak to him about religious matters at all.

He condescendingly assured me he wasn’t going to preach to me and rather asked about my personal life i.e. was I married? Where was I living and whom with?

The man was starting to sound like a stalker and a single woman can never be too careful about her safety so I panicked and lied… I told him that I was unmarried but that I lived with He Who Shall Not Be Named and we’d been together for 10 years.

Sweet Mother of the Seven!

The man saw red and went off at me about how I was giving my body away to a user and sinning against God. He ranted and raved for the better part of 10 minutes about how He Who Shall Not Be Named was just using me for sex and didn’t respect me.

I couldn’t believe my ears – I had lied to shut this cleric up and here I was getting slut shamed instead!

Only in my wildest dreams would I be sinning all night every night for ten years…

Kids, I have never felt so ashamed of something I didn’t do in all of my life … Damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Eavesdropping on a noisy neighbour:

“Oh God! Oh God, Oh God … F***!”

By September 2016, I had been listening to my male and very vocal downstairs neighbour scream his gratitude to his Creator in the throes of passion for the better part of nine months.

The fact that he was doing this at 8pm and 1am respectively with his apartment windows left wide open for everyone in all of Vredehoek to hear  his every grunt and movement aside, the thing that bothered me most was that I never heard his partner … which begs three questions: 1) was he gagging his companion, 2) was he using a blow-up doll or 3) was he just that good at loving himself?

More importantly, how the f*** did I politely ask him to keep it down?

I was sorely tempted to march down to his apartment the next time he got too loud and say: “ Look, if you aren’t going to be quiet about it, at least invite me in to join you!” but as we all know, I am utterly useless at chatting up men. I am also nowhere near that adventurous!

To avoid embarrassment, I quickly ran past his front door every time I needed to leave and prayed that I would never have to see him at a building meeting ever because I would blush all fifty shades of red for sure.

Why do these things keep happening to me????