I drove to Durban twice over the holiday season, a sensation not unlike giving yourself a Brazilian wax with a weed-eater.
A bunch of us on our way to an overnight gig at the coast are spewed down the Satanic alimentary canal that is the N3 highway along with Timeshare Man and his extended family tree. The windscreen is coated in a greasy film of bug guts centimetres thick, so I tend to look in the rear view mirror a lot. Scenery at any price, Dammit! One second there's a blip on the horizon and the next I'm getting an eyeful of some car a fraction away from our rear bumper.
From what I can see of the expression behind the steering wheel, a sexually aroused Crazy Frog ringtone creature is stalking my tailpipe. The car is, and I'm not kidding here, a Toyota Tazz. I'm astonished. Firstly because I've never seen one that wasn't being driven by a lesbian in a golf shirt. Secondly, this is the fast lane. I have German engineering, airbags and an ABS braking system and this guy has... a Toyota Tazz. I feel so intimidated.
Testosterone and a GP number plate demand a duel, but the N3 is a place of desperate souls and I decide just to pull over and let this retard through. He never even glances in our direction for the long minutes it takes him to get past, little Japanese pistons screaming. A Toyota-Friggin-Tazz. Mid-nineties model sixteen hundred, biscuit tires, no power steering and mechanical brakes. You don't see many classic models like that nowadays... because they're crap.
There's a kid amongst the luggage in the back, proving once and for all that you don't need a cool car to get laid. He's playing with a plastic bag that they distribute free at the tollgates. The bag has a huge printed logo with the road safety slogan, "Arrive Alive!" And as Crazy Frog white-knuckles it on in his Tazz, the last view I get is of his offspring pulling the plastic bag saying "Arrive Alive!" slowly over his head.
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