The dreaded words: “I’m watching your car lahnee”. Masood Boomgaard is just sick of it.
Durban - When did this whole car guard thing start? It almost seems like it was an overnight decision made collectively by South Africans that we would suddenly start entrusting people who failed at everything else in life with the security of our parked cars. I don’t actually know if car guards realistically serve any purpose. Let’s look at who car guards are for a start. There is no regulatory body for this so-called profession so literally anyone who finds a reflector vest in a trash bin can be a car guard. No brain required.
The fact that car guards don’t have to study, train or be registered means that there is zero accountability. Your car can disappear before his very eyes and all you will get from him is a shrug of the shoulders.
I had a very interesting conversation with a car guard the other day. I parked my car and he greeted me with the usual “howzit lahnee, I’m watching the car nicely lahnee.”
To which I replied: “Are you going to be here all night?”
“I’m here all the time. All the time lahnee!” He said.
“Then how come a car was stolen from this car park last Wednesday?” I asked.
“I wasn’t here lahnee,” he fired back.
MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS NEEDED
While I think it would be a bit counter productive to dismantle the whole car guarding “industry”, there needs to be minimum requirements for car guards. For instance, you can’t be a car guard if you’re in a wheelchair. Not that I have anything against people with disabilities. It’s just that if you’re out on the street at night in a wheelchair your biggest concern is going to be keeping an eye out for people trying to strip your chair for scrap metal, rather than watching the cars of strangers. Many of the car guards I know have disabilities, which limits their “crime fighting” abilities, to put it mildly.
The other day a car guard popped out in front of me and was like, “I see for your car nicely, lahnee!”
And this guy was blind.
Many of us tip car guards not because they’re providing an essential service but because we feel sorry for them. We’re trying to do some good in the world. Which means we basically see them as beggars with reflector vests.
The other reason people give me for tipping car guards is “if you don’t, they will scratch your car.” Which is the worst reason to pay a car guard. Why should you pay protection money against damage?
Tipping car guards, to a certain extent, is an unnecessary added expense to your already costly life.
What’s annoying is that after paying an arm and a leg for parking at the mall, the car guard still expects his tip. And if you’re doing a number of errands, your car guard surcharges can easily end up exceeding what you actually went out to buy in the first place.
EVASIVE TACTICS
Of course you can revolt against the system if you like, choose not to tip car guards. I’m on a non-tipping programme at the moment which is quite interesting because each time I return to my vehicle it’s like I’m stealing my own car.
Like the other day for instance I found myself tip toeing in the shadows back to my car parked just off Florida Road.
I had successfully evaded the car guard who was stoned out of his mind, fortunately for me. I was at my car door with the keys in my hand when I realised that some car guards actually smoke a very special type of weed that makes them oblivious to everything around them except the sound of dangling car keys.
The car guard suddenly sprang to life and started sprinting in my direction shouting something incoherent while I fumbled at the car door, eventually getting it open.
I started the car hastily and screeched out of
the parking, breathing a huge sigh of relief as I noticed the pursuing car guard disappear in my rear view mirror.
I thought I was home free when from the back seat I heard a voice say, “I see your car nice nice lahnee.”
It was the blind car guard from before.
I thought I could escape, but I was wrong. -Sunday Tribune
Follow me on Twitter: @masoodboomgaard