I Wants Me Some Slice and Dice
Saturday, July 07, 2007
One phenomenon I had been meaning to blog about is the Construction Worker Cat Call. I am subject to these hey babes’s and kissy faces on my daily walk to the MRT, when I pass by the construction site for this call center. Yet I realized that there isn’t much to say about this, considering that verbal molestation is something I can numb out, something whose psychological damage I can delude myself into minimizing.
Riding in some jizzwad’s taxicab like I did tonight is another deal altogether.
Now, it is common knowledge amongst my friends that I have had my share of scumbag cabbies, the most celebrated one being that guy who was apparently jacking off the whole ride home. I’m not sure if tonight’s incident was a rung above or below that. Something awful could have happened, but I’m not sure if this is just a spell of paranoia on my end. Regardless, tonight’s cabbie really was a douche. And he had really bad sideburns.
The little Q&A—with him smoking a cigarette all the while—was tolerable. Which province I was from, what I did for a living, how old I was. Conversational fare, although the tone he used was already smarmily suspect. And then—
Cabbie Douche: Ang swerte naman ng mga tinututor mo.
Margie remains silent, the Putang Ina Alarm going off in her head.
Cabbie Douche: At ang swerte naman ng magiging asawa mo.
Margie stares out of the window longingly, gauging her ability to jump out into C-5 traffic.
Cabbie Douche: Siya nga pala, anong pangalan mo?
Margie tries to think of the most un-Margie-like name possible.
Margie: Sandra.
Cabbie Douche extends his grimy hand.
Cabbie Douche: Nestor.
Margie touches Cabbie Douche’s hand for a nanosecond, kicking herself for not investing in a bolo.
He maintained the scuzziness the rest of the way, prodding me for more biodata, and I continued to humor him, chucking un-truths at him as I took solace in the fact that we were en route, at the very least. I was very wary the whole time, though. I had the strongest feeling that something was going to happen in the last few meters of that stupid trip. And something could have happened. I think.
We reached the house, and I told the douche in a nice but strident tone to pull to the side. And, as lovely luck would have it, he didn’t. He kept driving onwards, speeding the cab up, this strange, strange look in his eyes. That’s when my fear kicked in—a sheet of ice setting quickly across my chest, the exact same panic I felt during last year’s tricycle mugging (I’m a blessed commuter, fuck it). So I screamed at him, telling him to turn the fucking cab around. It took several more blocks and a few more of my screeches before he finally snapped out of whatever the hell that stupor was. And then he turned the cab around, apologizing, and dropped me off at my house. And the harrowing thing was, I didn’t have to tell him which exact lamp post to pull up to. The douche knew, although he did a poor job of pretending to be a little lost on the way back. The cab even lingered for a while after I had slammed the gate. I could hear its engine rumbling for much longer than it would take for the driver to count out the fare or whatever that typical pause is for.
There is that chance that I was paranoid, that the past bad trips I’ve had did leave me more traumatized than I thought I was. (I mean, ever since the jack off incident, I have been double-checking cabbies’ crotches.) There is that chance that the bastard did just miss my house, that he did get all deaf and dumb just for those few crucial moments. But then again, I don’t know if that last statement was borne out of some real sense of benevolence or out of being a goddamn doormat. As I’ve said, he was a smarmy son of a bitch in the first place. He was not nice to me. He made me want to wash my hands.
I have no concrete knowledge of any theories on gender politics, but I’m pretty damn sure there’s one out there stating how men have the upper hand due to their raping capabilities. Granted that women can rape men too, of course, but I don’t think I’m that wrong in saying that men hold the clout in that department. I suppose what happened a few hours ago was an apt, albeit phobic, illustration.
I propose cabbie community-wide castration. I would like to see pain, please. And plenty of it. It’s only fair, my dear dickwad drivers, for my own numbness has worn thin.
posted by marguerite @ 2:14 AM
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