Shtusim: for your entertainment

Monday, July 03, 2006

Elvis Has Left the Building

[Congratulations to me on my first blog of the new financial year].

I worked late last night and took a cab back home. The taxi driver drove like a complete maniac. I think that he thought that fishtailing the car is a good thing. We wove in and out of traffic, leaving the ambulance in our wake, flashing lights and all.

In full flight down Highway 1, the driver opens his door, looks back along the side of the car to the rear tyre. Suddenly, he pulls a hard right onto an off-ramp, squealing the tyres and kicking up smoke. I am loath to question him about our detour because I don't want to disturb his rhythm. It takes a lot of concentration to drive a Skoda like a formula-one Ferrari.

Slamming on the breaks, the taxi banks hard-left across the road through oncoming traffic. The car then tilts up onto two wheels as we round a traffic circle at high-speed, spin 180 degrees and come to a sliding halt opposite an air-hose in a petrol station. Perfect parking.

The driver gets out of the car and puts air in the back passenger tyre. He turns to me and says, "You probably noticed that I have been driving slower than usual. That's because the back tyre needs air. I'll fix that". I grimaced politely, mainly because I realised that my trousers had melted to the seat and I found it difficult to escape. I took the opportunity to glance around at my surroundings. Nothing special, just petrol pumps, a service bay, a coke machine and a huge 12 foot golden statue of Elvis.

The exterior walls of the petrol station are covered with Elvis billboards, "Elvis in Jailhouse Rock: the Rebel of Song" and "Elvis in the American Diner". Posters with the classical Elvis silhouette: one leg forward, the other behind him with the 1950s style microphone and stand sliding between his legs as he leans over it - hair flopping down over his face.

As the driver shifts into first and pulls out of the petrol station, I look behind at the fast disappearing building, slowly being obscured by the rising smoke from the spinning car tyres. I see that the entire petrol station is one big shrine to the King. A number of things run through my mind at that very moment:

1) The way this guy drives, this will probably be the last time I see the Elvis Petrol Station;
2) If I do survive the ride, I would like to buy petrol at this station because anyone who puts so much effort into dedicating his petrol station to a dead celebrity probably deserves the money;
3) If I do make it back to this petrol station, I could pay one shekel at a time and say, "One for the money, two for the show, three get ready now go, go, go!" just like the other thousand people before me.

The sudden quiet while the taxi became airborne as we hit a speed bump made me think that perhaps the place is probably really "jumping" during the day - Elvis music blasting out of the roof-mounted speakers, the petrol-pump-guys all with the classical Elvis hairdo and petrol on sale at 1950s prices.

I looked out the window and saw flashes of the petrol station come into view, disappear and then come back again. I was glad that the taxi driver knew how to get us out of the 360 degree spin we were experiencing in the middle of the highway. But at least it gave me a chance to view the increasingly intriguing petrol station for a few more minutes, albeit a little blurry.

Arriving in Ramat Beit Shemesh not too long afterwards, I peeled myself off the seat, rearranged my innards to where they were supposed to be and left the car, reflecting on the evening's detour. And now, here I am, sitting at the computer in the wee hours of the morning thinking to myself that in real life Elvis was probably just as exaggerated as this blog.

PS: If you travel down Highway 1, please look out for an eyeball. It popped out of my skull when we reached Mach 5 somewhere around Mevaseret Zion.

2 Comments:

Danny said...

Wow! what can I say...it just reminds me of the time not too long ago when a friend of mine wanted to 'test drive' my not so new car - a 1979 Toyota Corolla - by doing a 180º spin in the middle of a busy road and proclaiming that the brakes needed tweaking so that he could do a full 360º. Needless to say that was the last time I allowed him to drive my car...although I guess I didn't really learn from the experience as I have, despite the experience, gone driving with him in his car since, a sometimes hair-raising affair.

Tuesday, 04 July, 2006

 
Guess who? said...

I don't know about Elvis leaving any building, but B"H you were able to leave the taxi!

Monday, 07 August, 2006

 

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