The Perambulator: Lexus In Training

It’s Saturday the 26th of November 2005, at approximately ten to eleven the morning I first spotted the car that would change my life forever. She was white, long, black metal rims (hubcap free), had a big scrape on the rear right door but I just I had to have it. The guy selling it needed a smaller car for his wife and was very sad to let it go, a pretty believable story but so very far from the truth. I took the car for a spin and 5 minutes into the test drive I bought it for the princely sum of R18 000.

December 7th 2005: The day I pick up my most expensive purchase to date and the beginning of my biggest love affair ever. A ’94 Ford Telstar with an idling problem and stability issues. Two days later I took my car in for a 204 000km service but that operation turned out to be a much bigger affair. Eleven hours later my car was ready to be collected and after emptying my wallet I drove her home mad as hell. Not the ideal start to the ownership experience; that was also the very night I named it The Perambulator.

A couple of days later I hopped into my now purring car and took her to meet my friend Gary. Gary is a Honda fan and me purchasing a Mazda in Ford drag didn’t sit very well with him. “Your car looks like it belongs in the FBI,” said Gary and that’s when I figured out my hectic attraction to this large family car I found myself owning. The Ford Crown Victoria is my favourite Ford. It’s a full sized sedan usually used by the American Police and Taxi industry and is probably the most crashed car in cinematic history. Next year will be its last year of production and I will enter a blog post on it in the not too distant future. My car has a slight resemblance to the American legend that is the Crown Vic and just like that my love for my new car was restored.

The Perambulator has a good couple of stories to tell in the three years I operated her. She has seen most of the club parking lots in Cape Town, she’s been driven to George while being in dire need of a service, many people learnt to drive using her, she was shot in a gang war (no they weren’t aiming at her), she has driven though knee high floods and she was even brutally smashed by a Golden Arrow bus. I’ve had some of my most memorable conversations in her, I’ve laughed my loudest and shed bucket loads of tears, I’ve kissed one or two guys and yes she’s even been stuck at the roadside without petrol. Two years ago the engine died on me at 316 000kms and I couldn’t even be mad at it because she was faithful for over 112 000kms. 112 000 kilometers in three years? You betcha!!

The time has come to sell the corpse of The Perambulator and it saddens me to my core. I know her memory will live on in the hearts and minds of most of the people she’s carried over the years. I’m a better man for owning that Ford badged Mazda and I’d buy another one if I could find one at a good price with a low amount of mileage on the odometer.

Ten Things I've Learnt In My 27 Years

I know I've already published this as a note on facebook but I feel it's worth republishing...

1. Choose your friends very carefully and love them with all your might; they might just reciprocate.
It's risky I know, but your true friends will love you back and that dear readers makes it all worth it. Quality over quantity...

2. It's might be hard to forgive and forget; it costs more to hold a grudge.
Who needs to live with that negativity anyway?

3. Mr Right beats Mr Right Now.
The man worth crying for will never let you shed a tear; tears of joy excluded of course.
A man is a hard to find but a real man will find you.

4. There's no shame in learning from others' mistakes.
Why put yourself through unnecessary grief?

5. Compromise is not a sign of weakness.
Do you wanna be right or do you want to be happy?

6. There's a difference between religion and spirituality.
Your relationship with your God need not be dictated by anyone but yourself. By now you should know the difference between right and wrong anyway...

7. Somethings are better left unsaid.
Enough said.

8. Appreciate every moment of solitude.
The most important relationship you will ever have is the one with yourself.

9. There is so much more to life than material wealth.
You are not gonna be buried in that car; when you reach the Pearly Gates St Peter is not gonna emulate an Ackermans advert and say nice loafers and Satan certainly is not gonna wanna listen to your mp3 player.

10. Life goes on...

Confessions Of A Gay Cab Driver

So here I am at work with two hours to kill before going home to my three dogs (Brüno, Dexter and Snoopy) and two or more episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race (season two). With this two hours I'm gonna briefly let you (the reader) into the world of a cab driver in Cape Town.

I am Eugene Mathews. I'm currently 27 years of age, I'm an out and proud gay man and due to circumstances (that I can barely recall) I am currently a cab driver for Rikkis Urban Safaris. I also work in the call centre, assist in the marketing department, occasionally help out with the allocating of vehicles to drivers and cash ups (supervising) and lately I've been helping out in the workshop (last Friday I help our head mechanic swop the driver's doors of two cars and the week before that I was involved in the dirty job of replacing a front shock absorber). Such butch work but I'm loving every moment of it, even the greasy bits.

In the beginning I received a little resistance from a couple of my (straight) colleagues because of my obvious homosexuality but that prompted me to be even more flamboyant than I usually am and a year later I find myself missed when I'm not seen at work. Yes I've had a couple of altercations with one or two narrow-minded colleagues and superiors but patience and an above average wit helped me gain a whole lot of respect and love. A love of beer certainly helped my cause but that's beside the point at this time.

As time progressed I adopted a Sasha Fierce-type sub-personality who I've sinced dubbed Materia Girl (we use Daihatsu Materias as our vehicle of choice, rocket science calculations are not required). The Materia Girl is a character who is loved and feared in equal quantities, she works at a rate that scares even me at times. She has performed death defying feats such as driving from the BP in Somerset Road, Green Point, to the airport in 9 minutes which wouldn't be as impressive if she weren't driving an automatic Daihatsu. She's driven to Stellenbosch from the Foreshore in 21 minutes. Kalk Bay? 19 minutes thank you very much. She's patient and fun with clients but never does she allow herself to be walked over. She never receives speeding finds though and has only been in one car crash but that's only because a drunk woman in a Polo braked too late. Being the Materia Girl is hard work though...

It all starts when walking towards our depot. The walk changes to something similar to what Beyoncé does when performing Get Me Bodied. My hair somehow becomes more flowy, my posture changes and all problems and issues outside of work matters no longer. The real fun begins once I receive my car though...

My job is one that's unpredictable at best. I could drive an American couple over Chapman's Peak with close to zero visibility due to fog or pick up a shady character in Gugulethu who'll turn out to be a most useful future contact. One client from Hout Bay has even become one of my favourite facebook friends.

It isn't all moonshine and roses though; being a cab driver, especially at night can be a pretty dangerous profession. Drunk drivers drive kamikaze style, cab drivers from rival companies are always ready to fight (sometimes physically) for a customer and the opportunity to be hijacked is omnipresent. At the end of the day I do know that I am saving the lives of the drunk and entertaining the not as drunk whether it be with my at times strange sense of humour or my at times strange taste in music.

Once upon a time I was embarrassed to be doing what I do but as I've grown in my job and as a person, so has the shame faded. Best you know when I ain't working I refuse to drive, but that's a story for a future blog.

Work is scarce in this beautiful city of ours so while I'm doing what I'm doing I might as well do it to the best of my ability. Cab driving is not what I plan on doing for the rest of my days, my levels of potential does not allow it but what a fun way to make a living in the meantime!

Materia Girl aka LTI Lady aka Quantum Queen.