Going for a ride

I wave frantically to get his attention. He revs the engine, as though he hasn’t seen me, then he suddenly slows down and comes to a halt a rat’s-whisker away from me. I can smell the car’s excitement at being that close to sleighing someone, even a nation-building, wanna-be gun-wielding, soon-to-be ghetto-fabulous me. His accomplice opens the door. It creaks from the strain of years of opening and closing. He gives me the ‘enter now you weenie’ look. I give him the ‘I aint no weenie, weenie’ look. He then gives me the ‘so you aren’t a weenie, but please enter the car’ look. I contemplate giving him the ‘whatever!’ look. Then I remember it reeks of female; that look is STRICTLY a reserve for the females…(I almost typed fairer sex…images of the bodybuilding, muscle-flexing, adrenaline-filled females woke me up…). Look-exchange out of the way, I jumped, rather sauntered, into the taxi.

They all looked normal as I sat down. Had to squeeze my way through to the back. Exchanged a few looks on my way there. I sat. I started to notice things.

HE1 reeked of alcohol. He was sleeping. He was drooling. He’d had a long night. Probably doing bad manners. Or good manners.

HE2 was chewing away at groundnuts. He noticed me almost staring (because as a rule, I do not stare…so almost). He growled. I growled back. He bared his teeth. I laughed. He snarled. I shut up and started almost staring at SHE1.

SHE1 seemed ill at ease. She kept answering her phone and saying all these things about how she was upcountry and couldn’t make it. SHE1’s he (her tone suggested it was a he-making-advances on the other end of the line) seemed to buy the story. She kept making stabs at the air while talking. Almost poked me in the process. When I got tired of dodging her stabs, I grabbed her by her long hair, looked her straight in the eyeball and screamed loud enough for people in the airplanes passing overhead to hear, “STOP DOING THAT!!!”. She took it all in, smiled, and went back to what she was doing. Those last two sentences aren’t entirely true. But it happened in my mind. True story.

SHE2 was listening to one of those if-I-look-at-that-iPod-a-third-time-I’ll-surely-steal-it iPods. She was bobbing her head. She was grinding. Twisting. Turning. Gyrating even. All of us in the taxi worked together and pretended not to see her. Then she started. First softly. “You are turning me on…you are turning me on”. I thought I had some charm, a bit a bit, but hey, didn’t know I could do that in a taxi!!. Not exactly the worst thing to hear from an eyeful of a lady, especially if:

1. She has the aforementioned iPod
2. You aren’t making an effort to do the turning on.

SHE2’s grinding continues. And she’s still whispering the oh-so-exciting stuff. I double-check. I’m not touching her in any way! How am I doing this turning her on thing? I’m still wondering how I’ve acquired this power when she bursts into song, or something similar. Turns out its Keri Hilson’s hit she’s been getting worked up about. Drat! No super power…

HE3, SHE3 and HE4 are in a heated debate about whether Kandi Kee’s dress was made of real feathers or not. SHE3 earnestly (no offence Baz) believes that the dress was real real feathers. HE3 has facts and figures to prove otherwise. He says that the number of chickens needed to pull off such a feat are too many, and besides (he concludes) Kandi Kee’s country doesn’t even have half the number of chicken needed to do that kind of thing. “And which chicken-loving person would allow all those feathers to go to waste?,” is his closing rhetoric question, at which point he reaches into his wallet and pays the taxi fare. The conductor seems to want to weigh in and give an opinion on Kandi Kee’s dress but he stops himself, barely. HE4 comes off as the hopeless sod who has no opinion on the said dress and just wants to get with SHE3 so he keeps nodding whenever she makes a submission. But then again, he just comes off that way.

I have no idea who Kandi Kee is. “Ku stage boss”, I tell the taxi driver. He looks back, increases the volume of the already-blaring ‘bolingo’ music and steps on the accelerator. I scream again. He hears me above the din. He stops the taxi. I pay the fare. I go to a café and hit ‘publish’ on this post.