I'd Rather Be In Southeastern Utah

Last week it was a knife, this weekend it was some young fool hijacking an intersection.  Coming back from the amazing terrain and geology that is the more-or less corner of SE Utah to silly, drunken Capitol Hill is not something I want to continue doing.  My first fare is a couple stepping into the taxi at the corner of 10th & East Pike while patiently waiting for all the pedestrians to pass.  Once the door is shut, a young drunken (call him anything you wish) decides to stop directly in front of my car (and the line of cars behind me) declaring that he is not moving and we will all have to back up.  It appeared that his actions were in tandem with his tag team partner, another kid who threw himself against 478 while broadly smiling, evidently mimicking a pedestrian/car collision.  After refusing to leave I did something I haven't done in decades.  I pushed him out of the way.  His response was to swing wildly at me while yelling don't put your hands on me.  Some more sensible representatives of the human species finally pulled him to the side. Even then he attempted to regain his position in the street but again was pulled away.  Its this kind of madness and total early full moon nonsense that makes taxi driving less than reasonable. The silence of the wind-swept canyons and carved red sandstone is far more interesting.  Dealing with self-absorbed idiots who think taxis are their personal foil is something that shouldn't be part of the job description.  Unfortunately taxis (and their drivers) are considered public entities that can be accessed at a moments notice without any potential and meaningful consequence. As I wrote recently concerning the mass grave of Iraqi taxi drivers, this is our shared reality: everyone has a cultural permission to do anything they wish to all of us ciphers beneath the top light.  Why respect dalits?  Let them instead eternally swim societal sewers, fouled fishes in a polluted, inferior sea.  Think this is an exaggeration?  Get your "for hire" and talk to me in a month.  You will then understand.