Marine Taxis

Whenever I get shit-faced at a bar, night club or public park, I tend to do it in the company of a designated driver, as they can then tell me where I live, what my name is, and then proceed to take me home in a calm and safe manner. At this point I'd just like to tail off for a minute and say that five commas in one sentence is pretty awesome - have a look at that last sentence I just wrote.

Anyhoo, the designated driver is usually pre-determined through a Greco Roman Wrestling tournament thrown beforehand at The HQ, with the ultimate loser having to then spend the rest of the night drinking soda water whilst listing to the drunken and unfunny ramblings of everyone else. This particular occasion saw The Gupster and myself oiled up and fighting for our lives - literally in my case - as I am severely allergic to soda water, with just one drop being enough to make my head explode - a fact everyone who attended the Finkelstein Bar Mitzvah in 2003 will surely attest to.

I had just managed to put The Gupster in a reverse leg lock, when out of nowhere he pulled out a rolling fireman's carry and slam, causing the both of us to go crashing into the coffee table The Girlfriend so cherishes. Besides signing our own death warrants, this act also ensured that the match was a tie, meaning there was no designated driver for the night.

So it came to pass then that we decided to call the Marine Taxis to take us around. (Jesus Hernandez - what a long introduction to the main point of the story)

Referring to themselves as "the Marines", their adverts promise that the Marine taxi drivers are highly trained professionals who know Cape Town as well as one would know a long term sexual partner, trained in first aid, advanced driving, martial arts as well as weapons training. Basically the kind of guy you would want at your side in a scrap with some drunk varsity students outside Tin Roof on a Monday night. Yes, the Marine taxi driver is a fearsome creature indeed. Or so we thought.

What we got instead was a frail looking old guy who could just about look over the wheel. This was of course after he eventually managed to arrive outside The HQ, as he got lost for a while, and failed to initially notice the trail of sheer awesomeness that would have lead him to us. Once inside the car, he showed off all his immense advanced driving skills, hurtling down the M3 at about 70 km per hour whilst listening to Radio 2000.

When we eventually got us to our destination, he couldn't work out how to get the swipe card machine to work properly, so we had to take some money off three white guys walking passed, as we didn't have any cash on us, and it would have been a bit awkward to leave without paying. He also said he would wait for us, but we later saw him driving off with two flossies back toward the city, so we never saw again after that.

So yeah, that was basically our vibe with Marine Taxis. They don't offer a bad service overall, it's just that we kind of felt a little lead on, like when a guy takes home a shapely young flossie he met at F-TV, and discovers that she was actually wearing a corsette and has hairy armpits, or a chick hooking up a hot guy she met at Caprice, and discovering he had a pair of socks in his underpants all along.

We kind of expected more, that's all.

Marine Taxis mostly operate around the CBD region, you can contact them at 021 434 0434.



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