I’ve had my fair share of corny pickup lines while growing up. The first encounter I had with a pickup line was when my first boyfriend wrote me a letter declaring his undying love for me. Besides decorating the letter with angel stickers and quoting Bible verses from Songs of Solomon, he also added this pickup line which I’ll never forget. It read ‘the twinkle in your eye shines brighter than the moon and the silkiness of your brown skin is finer than chocolate.’ Bear in mind that I was 16 at the time, so anything that resembled mushy-tushiness and feelings of being the only girl in the world for him overwhelmed me to proportions that seem absolutely ridiculous to me now.

But looking back at this love incident, I can see the cuteness of it all and I just laugh about it now when I read the letter again. Oh yes; things such as your first love letter aren’t items that are discarded, but rather, they are kept in a secret box that stores all things that paved your way to womanhood.

So, in the spirit of pickup lines, I’ve decided to wreck people’s brains, including Google’s brain, and present to you the cheesiest lines you’ll ever hear, as well as what could potentially go through my mind if I were to be the unfortunate victim of pickup lines. Here they are:

Do you have a map? I’m getting lost in your eyes. (Seriously, in the world of GPS, you’re going to go down the map route to woo me?)

Smoking is hazardous to your health… and baby, you’re killing me! (Are you seriously comparing me with tobacco? Oh, just because it’s an accepted lung intoxicant you think you can compare it to me right?)

Me without you is like a nerd without braces, a shoe without laces, aSentenceWithoutSpaces. (Actually, nerds without braces do exist, shoes without laces are in fashion and sentences without spaces tend to trend on Twitter if a hashtag is included just by the way, in case you’re wondering).

I must be a snowflake, because I’ve fallen for you. (This is Africa babe; ain’t nobody got time for snowflakes!)

There is something wrong with my cell phone. It doesn’t have your number in it. (Nah; I think a flat battery is the problem seeing as you’re using a Blackberry phone).

You must be a hell of a thief because you stole my heart from across the room. (Aaaah; so I’m a gangster now! How romantic!).

If this bar is a meat market, you must be the prime rib. (Are you trying to say that I’m fat?).

I’m fighting the urge to make you the happiest woman on earth tonight. (Oh; so you think I’m your booty call or your one-night stand? *throws a slap across the face*).

Rejection can lead to emotional stress for both parties involved and emotional stress can lead to physical complications such as headaches, ulcers, cancerous tumors, and even death! So for my health and yours, JUST SAY YES! (I see you’ve been studying the Grey’s Anatomy series; well done!).

Did you fart? Because you blew me away. (Seriously? No like really?)

If you’re planning on using pickup lines, please think twice before going ahead with your plan because it fail epically with double dozes of embarrassment to top it off.

*pickup lines sourced from pickuplinesgalore.com

But I must ask; at what point does one decide to name their daughter Pinkie?

This has been the question that has been trending in my mind since I visited some family members back home in Kagiso (a township in the west of Johannesburg), and one of my aunts belted out a strong ‘Pinkie!’ as she was calling her sister from across the road. And the name Pinkie wasn’t a nickname; it was an actual name that my aunt received from her parents at birth. It was then that I realized that Pinkie was a very awkward and hilarious name.

I know the weirdest of all names, from Matlakala (which means rubbish and is usually an inherited name) to Sputnik (my uncle’s nickname; I guess the family wanted him to work for NASA at some point) all the way to Pinkie, which takes the cup for me. I guess the weirdness and humour comes from the character of my aunt Pinkie.

I love my dear aunt Ous’ Pinkie, as she is affectionately known in the township, but she’s quite a weird woman in the sense that she’s unconventional in her ways and her demeanor. And I put full blame on her name Pinkie.

She’s light in complexion but her face is red and droopy from excessive alcohol consumption. She’s quite passionate about beer. She always says that the taste of it is the sweetest thing she’s ever known (bear in mind that beer is quite bitter), and that beer helps her have a good time. Her favourite beer, by the way, is Carling Black Label. She loves this beer more than anything else. She considers it as her way of living ‘la vida loca’ and I’m sure that if she had to choose between saving her purse from a fire and saving her bottles of Black Label, she would dive head-first for the beer.

She has shoulder-length, jet black hair which is half afro and half relaxed, but one hardly ever sees it, except on Sundays when she goes to church, because she’s always wearing a doek; she’s is average in height and her build is quite slender.  She’s a domestic worker, who is quite above average as the family that she works pays her very well, so she can afford the better things in life, but as per Ous’ Pinkie, she opts for finer alcohol instead. She’s usually uncontrollably loud and over-extroverted, especially when she’s drunk, so no one really wants to be around her for too long. Her extroverted nature makes her super talkative, so best believe that whether she’s sober or intoxicated, secrets that you share with her will become public knowledge very soon.

She also tends to fight a lot, and when she does, she panel-beats her opponent to a pulp, and not even the strongest man can hold her down until she’s satisfied with the destruction she’s causing. One time she beat up a middle-aged female drinking buddy off hers so badly that the lady was in a wheelchair for a month with a face so bruised (for about a week) that one would think that the she was a survivor of a hectic war. Apparently, the fight was caused by a heated argument over debt. The drinking buddy owed Ous’ Pinkie R20 in alcohol debt, but she had been stalling in paying Ous’ Pinkie her money. The ‘Good Samaritan’ Ous Pinkie got frustrated that the drinking buddy was giving her a hard time with paying her back what was owed to her, and at that point, things got physical, and Ous’ Pinkie turned into a WWE wrestler.

Ous’ Pinkie has an opinion about everything, but the conclusion is the same, and that is she hates everyone and everything about life. No story has a happy ending, unless if you consider her whipping some poor soul’s behind a happy ending. She blames the government for everything that’s wrong in society and even though her job pays her well, she hates the fact that she’s stuck in domestic work just to put food on her table. She would’ve opted to own a shebeen as she feels that brings in more money, but she didn’t follow through with the business idea because she got occupied with drinking sprees instead.

She dislikes her relationships with friends, but she tolerates them because she’s succumbed to the fact that she has to live with human beings. She had a husband, but in the 80’s, he left for Rustenburg to go work on the mines, and he hasn’t been home ever since. As a result, she doesn’t have any children, so caring for her nieces and nephews nurtures that motherly instinct that I assume she has, even though she doesn’t show it at all. Maybe her outbursts of anger and misery and her excessive drinking are caused by the heartbreak of her husband walking out on her. When she recalls the year that she realized that he wasn’t coming back, a whiff of sadness and pain comes over, which makes me feel so sorry for her and makes me realize once again that, as crazy as she might be at times, she is still human.

This is the description of my Ous’ Pinkie; terribly loud, ever-complaining and swearing, overbearing at times and angry at life in totality with a distinguishable ‘pooza face’. I choose to believe that Ous’ Pinkie is a fantastic person, even though I can’t spend more than 15 minutes with her because then she starts complaining and starts cursing lividly at everything and everyone. I think that if she had another name other than Pinkie, her life would be different and she wouldn’t fit this stereotype which is synonymous with most Pinkie’s that I know in the township. Most Ous’ Pinkie’s seem to fit this very description, which is quite a scary thing to comprehend in my mind.

Therefore, at the point which a parent decides to name their daughter Pinkie is the point where I wonder what was going through their minds to make them choose such a name, and thus carve out an actual Pinkie.

*image from travelblog.portfoliocollection.com

So while Miguel was performing at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards on May the 19th, he leaped from one part of the stage to another and accidentally kicked two women in the head while wearing man heels.

I think that the brunette woman got the worst kick because she bashed her head on the stage before realizing what had happened to her.

Shame! And all I can say is OUCH!!!

Check the video here via YouTube:

Kerry is one of my favourite actresses and she’s been at the top of her game for quite a while, and I’m super glad that Hollywood is finally realizing this fact. And her photoshoot is simply a drool-fest, so ladies and gents, be prepared to feast your eyes on great fashion and the hotness that is Kerry Washington:

*images from Elle.