Whatever happened to Bob and the Girls?

Not necessarily Bob and one of the girls, but a pretty reasonable facsimile and it is on Rarotonga.

It happens when one stays in a certain place for a period of time during one’s travels that one happens upon the same people at various times. One doesn’t know these people, and one often wonders who they are, or perhaps what they do. What are their lives like?

If such people are unique in some way – either beautiful, or not so beautiful, but maybe seeming a bit eccentric, so much the better. It is then that these people become fodder for verbal playwrighting. Wendy and I have amused ourselves for a number of years by developing scenarios about the individuals and fitting them into a tale of some sort. We then will wonder how much of our tale is true. Sometimes we even give them names. Sometimes the names are true, because we’ve overheard them, but other times we christen them ourselves.

Our most elaborate travel play was back in 2001 and it concerned the curious behaviors of ‘Bob and the Girls’ at the far-off destination of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.

On our second day there we took the little local bus into the tiny town of Avarua (which, despite its minuscule nature, is also the capital city of the ‘Nation of the Cook Islands.’) and a few stops past our own the bus stopped to pick up a trio of folk: a rather portly middle aged man and two women (also a tad on the zaftig side). They got on the bus and, judging by their accents, they were North Americans – either Canadian or American.

One of the women made a number of references to ‘Bob’, so that was the reason for Bob and the Girls. One of the girls -- the one who seemed to be married to Bob, as her familiarity seemed greater – began a conversation with the bus driver (a wonderful and witty Maori named Dennis) in which she was bemoaning the plethora of dogs on the island. And, it’s true. Dogs are everywhere. They are never vicious, nor are pathways befouled with poop, surprisingly. Anyway, one of Bob’s girls didn’t like the dogs, and complained to Dennis they should be doing something about these strays. By the way, I detest people who go to another culture and then complain because things aren't done exactly as they are 'back home.' You don't like it, then stay home!

“We did have a way of dealing with them in the old days,” Dennis graciously replied. “But then the missionaries came and put a stop to that.”

His reference was to the fact that puppydog had once upon a time been a mainstay of the Cook Islands diet. Now they couldn’t eat them, so the canines had multiplied all out of proportion. Anyway, we hadn’t found them bothersome, but Mrs. Bob obviously had.

A couple of days later we were in Avarua again and espied Bob and The Girls trying to get comfortable on the little motor scooters that are popular transport on Raro. The other ‘girl’ was astride this tiny 90 cc motorized velocipede, the tiny seat of which was having trouble accommodating the rather large cheeks of her too-tight-shorts covered bum. It was amusing.
So, from that point we started to work on our tale. Who were Bob and the Girls? We devised a few scenarios. Some were innocent (the ‘other’ girl was Bob’s sister, a school teacher, recently divorced (or never married) whom Bob and the Missus decided to invite along. Bob himself, meanwhile, looked like the manager of a small Midwest bank, and his wife looked a bit like maybe somebody that had clerked in Bob’s bank, and they had fallen in love.

So, that was our tame tale of Bob and the Girls. The more salacious one was that this was a ménage-a-trois and the trio was off in the South Pacific, going native, and getting up to sexual shenanigans that would have made Margaret Mead (or even Erica Jong) blush. The mind balked at that scenario, for esthetic reasons if no other (I have no objection to consenting adults doing whatever they like in the carnal realm as long as all are in accord), and I attempted to dispel that thought and return to our Midwest banker, spouse and sister. Well, they looked fairly wholesome, if truth were known.

Anyway, we saw them many times on our travels, and always took up the story afresh whenever we spied them. Then, the day to depart came. We got to the tiny air terminal early and were milling around a nice little patio area while awaiting boarding permission. We saw Bob and Mrs. Bob, but where was the third party? We saw her way over the far side, chatting with other people. It was obvious she’d had a few drinks since she was very demonstrative and verbal and was smoking one 100-millimetre cigarette after another. She was most definitely ‘not’ with the other members of the threesome.

What had happened? Was the sexual thing true, and had there been a jealousy issue arise? Or, had sister-in-law just become a pain-in-the-butt? We were almost tempted to ask, but realized that would be ridiculous.

Anyway, we boarded the flight from Rarotonga to Los Angeles, and prepared for the 10-hour-journey that was to follow. Bob and Mrs. Bob were sitting together. The ‘other’ person was sitting well away. We pondered this for a while, and then dozed on the long trip, and thought little more.

When we got to LA we transferred to an Air Canada plane for the flight to Vancouver. Lo-and-behold we were forced to scrap our Midwest scenario, since Bob and Mrs. Bob were also on their way to Vancouver. They were compatriots. In fact, Mrs. Bob sat right across the aisle from Wendy, who grew increasingly irritated by Mrs. Bob constantly unwrapping candy and crumpling the cellophane. We were very tired and out of sorts by this point. We also realized we didn’t see sister/mistress/whatever on that flight. Mr. and Mrs. Bob, by the way, exchanged absolutely zero words between the two of them on the three-hour flight to Vancouver. Hmm. We pondered what that was all about.

As the last leg of our trip, we had to change to a small commuter craft for the trip to Comox. To our relief, there were no members of the Bob family on that flight.
Yet, to this day, we still wonder about them and how they are doing. Did they eventually come back together as family/friends/lovers/whatever they were? I surely hope so.