Robyn Hobson
On an average day
Average Girl: Thank you Martha Stewart
Feb 26th
Cape Town is currently playing host to the 13th international Design Indaba, with the much publicized and anticipated guest speaker: Martha Stewart. Martha, who arrived late (think it was something to do with the fingerprint system : oh the beautiful irony) was unknowingly about to give probably the worst talk of the conference.
Martha: Prior to causing mass exodus
Thank you Ms Stewart for brightening up my day. Your talk (read sales pitch) caused a mass exodus, which relieved me from the complete, utter, life-draining boredom I was experiencing outside (when all the delegates are inside indaba’ing, there is not much to do). It also saved me from having to twiddle my thumbs and think about extreme high-heel induced pain (the man who invented those needs to wear them for a 6 hour stint).
At first a few people cautiously tiptoed out… I thought perhaps she had ended early. Looking at the twitter wall I saw rather unimpressed opinions begin to emerge. A few more delegates appeared. The twitter feed suddenly exploded and literally dozens of delegates flooded out the doors. Words like “ one big advert”, “wtf” and “what a joke”, ” we were lucky we could get out”, and “who cares about her houses,” were thrown around.
Favourite Quote: “Watching Cot Death would be more entertaining”.
Apparently Martha was conducting a sales pitch about her magazines, website and all things Martha.Perhaps she missed the concept of the design indaba.
Eventually loads of escapees were packed, enthralled around the twitter wall outside the auditorium. Giggling at the people still trapped inside: the poor, envious guy who was stuck in the middle row and couldn’t get out. The man asking to be smothered with a stenciled Hawaiian Flower Cushion. The lady who wanted a nap. The man who suggested Martha author a book entitled, ”How to Clear a Room”.
With each new tweet, the laughter grew louder! Eventually an announcement sounded, asking everyone to please remember a presentation was in progress and could we all keep quiet .
Enthralled Escapees
Sadly had to leave as my shift had finished.
Poor Martha. Inspire people, don’t Wikipedia yourself when writing your speech… and don’t talk about your houses 
Thank you though: you livened up my shift with a bit of impromptu comedy.
Average Girl : Audition
Feb 24th
Got up far too early, arrived at shops and even they were not awake yet.
Realized on way home that my number plate had fallen off (Toyota not doing well this year) … after hunting around the southern suburbs I finally found it. A taxi driver asked me if it was my number plate? I replied, ” No, I pick these things up all the time for fun.” The gaping hole where my number plate used to sit, could also have been a clue.
Day was fairly normal. I did some work…. the parrot bit me and we lost embarrassingly in the cricket against India.
I went to an audition in the evening. Was secretly hoping everyone else had forgotten… no such luck. Thought about shutting the gate and putting up a sign with “Audition cancelled” scrawled across it, but thought this would be unfair, so I didn’t.
I also didn’t have a pen.
Audition went well. There was a super keen candidate who kept proving that she had the ability to memorize three lines. She stated to a bunch of professional actresses that she always loses her voice for important things… like school plays.
Lost my keys (in the abyss that is the female handbag). Had to dump entire contents of bag on floor and watch three tampons race for dear life, to nowhere in particular, in opposite directions.
There were boys… I blushed.
Average Girl: Casting #59: Mexican Wave
Jan 27th
Headed off to a callback .
When I say I was the only actress there, I am not lying. Standing shoulder-level with some of Cape Towns most stunning, stick-thin imports ( Dutch, Spanish, Brazillian) who are all complaining about how overweight they are.
Inside the studio I was asked to perform a mexican wave, with a tray full of things ( wooden blocks, a highlighter, a water bottle) in my hand. Now call me dim, but I didn’t see how throwing a tray of stuff up above my head was smart on any level.
So the Casting Director said action and I threw the tray up and outwards. Away from me.
“No, no , no,” said the casting director. “Is that how you do a Mexican Wave ? Throw your hands upwards”.
“And hold onto the tray?” I asked.
“No,” he replied sounding frustrated. “Just let go of it.”
“It won’t hit you,” chipped in the Director who had been sitting on a couch rather quietly.
It’s horrible investing in a brain in these situations, because you know what you’re about to do is not smart.
But you do want the job. So you foolishly believe them because you reason that they’ve seen about 20 do this girls already, so they must be right.
What you fail to remember is that super skinny girls have less surface area.
So up went the tray, off went the things and of course one of the heavy wooden blocks hit me square in the middle of my head. Ouch!
Grabbed my head and winced … not quite the happy,carefree facial expression they were after.
Both Casting Director and Director had the grace to laugh 
Average Girl: A Vacuum Is A Tricky Thing
Jan 14th
So I was happily trawling the vacuum cleaner around the house,
as you do when the dust particles start talking to one another.
This is what happened……
And Yes, for those of you who are wondering that is in fact a headset.
Domestic-Goddess Fail .
Which reminds me, I must tell you what happened with the Iron!
Average Girl: Airport
Dec 16th
Today both my parents left for different parts of the world. My Dad was leaving at 11 am and my Mum was leaving at 5pm
… Cape Town International airport had just undergone a major revamp.
I dropped my Dad off. Then went home with Mum to pack her cases.
Mum’s case broke. Oh crap. Went to Sportmans warehouse to find big,ski, duffel bags. We needed two.
After digging in the back for several years, the shop assistant (who was very kind by the way) could only find one. There was however another one across town in Rondebosch. Ok we had enough time we could make it.
We got there, got the bag and got back home.
Then the scale broke. Which is a pain. My family loves to live on the edge with the baggage allowance: a scale is therefore a necessity for pleasant travel. (SAA had also once charged me R500 for being 1.3 kilos overweight: another average day).
I got a call from my agent round about this time. I had a wardrobe call at 4. Impossible I cried… she managed to get it moved to 5.30pm. She said I had to get there by then, as production was leaving at 5.30pm.
So got packed and off to the airport. Thank you, Cape Town home time rush hour.
Finally got to airport, only to be absolutely dumbfounded by the labyrinth of parking we now had to navigate.
My usual parking area was closed off…. so I headed for Parkade 2.
Some idiot had put all the terminal signs the wrong way round. So my mum and I spent near on 20 mins wondering around Parkade 2… getting exceptionally more stressed. It was very frustrating seeing the departure terminal… being told to go up another floor and getting nowhere near said departure terminal. Eventually we found a security guard and he kindly showed us where to go.
Got bags shrink-wrapped and then off to check in. Thank goodness my mum had checked in online…. or so we thought.
A large Asian tour group had arrived before us. There were too many of them to check through the normal counters, so they were checking them through the online counters. This resulted in some really fed up passengers, who ended up waiting longer than people who hadn’t checked in online.
I unfortunately couldn’t stay with my Mum, as I had to be in Salt River… in about 15 mins. Said a teary goodbye and was off.
Walked straight past the parking pay station. Realized I hadn’t paid when I got to car, 2 floors above. Then lost ticket. Found ticket and by this stage had lost money to pay for ticket (jeans have too many dam pockets).
Got ticket sorted, jumped into my car and sped towards exit (had 5 mins to make Salt River… ha ha). In my hurry I drove straight past the parking ticket machine and waited patiently at the boom while cars stacked up behind me.
Oh I realized.
Got some filthy looks from harassed people in x5′s ( they had probably been lost in the Parkade by the looks of it) and managed to reverse back to the ticket machine.
Ticket in: Boom Up: Light speed engaged (which is pretty fast for a Yaris).
Of course nothing goes smoothly, when you need it to.
Hurtling along N2 when all of a sudden … I see traffic….and what? Why are cars reversing to the nearest off-ramp?
Turns out, there was a very bad accident on the N2. So I was stuck. I sat there for 20 mins and didn’t move. I didn’t have the producers’ number so I couldn’t phone them and my agency was closed for the day.
Finally got through and fell in the door of the wardrobe call at around 6pm.
I was asked why I had rushed as they were running an hour late.
…
At least I booked the job
Average Girl: Sushi
Apr 28th
One of my favorite spots for sushi is Sevruga. I love the view, the jellybeans and the giant Mojitos.
I don’t know if it’s because I can’t quite get the fine art of eating with chopsticks quite right, or if I wave my sushi around too much when I talk, but you can always see where I have eaten. There are patterns of soy-sauce that reach far and wide, that plates , serviettes, soy-sauce bowls and anything else on the table struggle to cover up.
Tonight was a first. I had eaten my way through a substantial amount of sushi and I had not dropped one single spot of sauce anywhere.
As soon as I realized this , I had to tell the entire table ( who were au fait with my soy-sauce habits).
I was so excited to share the good news: it was a world first.
I said loudly,
” Hey guys, look! No soy sauce!”
I proudly swept my arm across the crisp, clean, white table-cloth in front of me.
Unfortunately, there happened to be an entire bottle of soy-sauce in the way which I had not seen. Arm sweeps. Sweeping arm meets bottle. Over bottle goes. Soy-sauce splatters everywhere.Table, me, passing seagulls, residents of Timbuktu. Table laughs. Waiter looks un-amused.
Sigh.
I search for the hole in ground that really should be appearing right about now.
Thanks Murphy.
Average Girl: Taking the rubbish out.
Mar 11th
I can’t remember exactly where I was. I do remember that It had been a really long day .
It was also a million degrees outside.
I thought I would be helpful and take the rubbish out.
This was pretty simple. All I had to do was get a rather full, black bag on the third floor, down the stairs and into the one of the bins that lined the driveway.
The bag was quite heavy . On my mission to be a modern, independent woman I brushed aside help from the guys.
I was ok for the first flight. I heard a sort of tearing noise. Was pretty sure it wasn’t the bag though ( in hindsight.. what else could it have been Robyn). Second flight. Bag really straining. I am picking up the pace because have realised tearing is actually coming from bag. Bag splits…. cans, papers and apple cores burst out and slinky down the stairs ( but with less grace).
This was still ok.
The worst part was the expired yoghurt that has made it’s way out the tub …. and onto my toes, legs and several stairs. Due to heat, yoghurt was like soup. It was also full of bits of strawberry.
I tried to piece the bag back together. Failed miserably. Picked it up and ran towards the bins. Yoghurt happily snail-trailing behind me.
Get to the bins. But of course… every single bin is full. Except for the very last one, that you struggle to open and to a girl standing with her arms full of the remnants of a full black bag, the end of the driveway seems very far.
So, it is still a million degrees. Yet I have made it to the end of the driveway and I am now fighting with a wheelie bin,throwing strawberry-flavoured, chunky yoghurt everywhere. Hands, arms, shirt… lovely.
Cue sense of humour failure.
You honestly have to laugh though. So that is precisely what I did.
There I was, covered in sticky, expired, strawberry- flavoured yoghurt having a stand up argument with a wheelie bin ( who was winning) giggling hysterically to myself.
Finally persuaded the bag and most of its contents into the bin.
Then traipsed back and forth up the stairs cleaning up the yoghurt.
To all those that know and love me.. this is most likely the reason I cannot stand yoghurt.
After what felt like several hours, I was finally finished. I went back upstairs, only to knock into someone and be drenched in coca-cola.
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