Today is Thursday the 22nd of September 2011, it's 08:45 and things have gone changed for a bitch...
Let's go back to Monday. Zandra is my cab, she's a 2010 Toyota Corolla 1.4 and I love her for days. Myself and my colleague Neil (not to be confused with my best friend with the same name) have shared custody of her and on Monday I was told by management to use her even though it wasn't my turn. Neil missed his previous shift and as punishment he was to use an inferior car (Zelna, an entry level 2005 Corolla 1.4 and the car I use when Neil has Zandra). I protested using Zandra on a day which Neil was supposed to use her, I really did. An internal voice told me "bad idea Eugene" but the idea of working a quiet Monday shift without music (all Zelna's speakers are blown, it wasn't me I swear) seemed too daunting. So with a little more arguing I took Zandra and had a pretty good shift until my fifth kilometer when some made in China taxi cut me off in Observatory main road, thus nearly taking out a headlight. A few minutes later a Polo almost rear ended me. Later while driving to the airport a bakkie drove over a stone which came flying straight for Zandra's windscreen; my customer freaked out when he saw the stone coming for us but I'd rather sacrifice a windscreen than an entire car so I kept driving and let the stone hit the car. The stone turned out to be a wine bottle cork and it just bounced off the windscreen without causing any damage. At the airport when reversing out of my parking space I had a near miss with a Marcopolo bus. On the way back to Obs I had a tyre burst and later on the way to the Waterfront a car pulled dead brakes in front of me forcing me to defensively swerve around it. This Monday had a very 'Final Destination' feel about it but I had my Maxwell mp3 cd playing so I ignored it all and continued working.
22:00. I'm busy reading a splendid novel by William Corlett (Now & Then) when the controller sends me on my next mission. I start Zandra up, select the next track on the cd which just happens to be the song I want played at my funeral (Tamia, Brandy, Gladys Knight and Chaka Khan - Missing You) and do my checks to make a u-turn. Mirror, blindspot, indicate and go; a split second later I hear a distant hooter and BHAM! a '97 Honda Ballade hit my cab with a force greater than Beyoncé; I knocked my head against the driver's window and Zandra is now pointed in a direction I never intending on going. I report to the controller that I've been in a collision, put hazard lights on, grab my Blackberry, wallet and Nokia and try getting out of Zandra only to discover the driver's door is jammed shut...
When I finally get out of Zandra there's an army of tow trucks swarming us assessing the damage and trying to get permission to tow the cars away. I'm in shock and when I see the damage to Zandra I wanna fall to my knees and bawl because already I know I'm gonna have to pay the insurance excess, lose my 'golden boy' status at work and be downgraded to the punishment car; a 4 speed Toyota Tazz. Zandra's front wheel is laying
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