Proving Yourself Anew Every Day (Kinda Gets To A Fellow)

As I will keep repeating to my final breath, there is nothing like taxi ( the taxi experience) and those who have shared the top-light know exactly what I mean.  But the hardest part might well be always having to prove yourself daily, finding that elusive fare sitting out there somewhere.  Because if you don't you go home broke, and if you are like me working just two days a week it is imperative you find the money. The pressure then is both daunting and intense.  A professional basketball player can have an off game or two, shooting an air-ball or clunking a free-throw but the overall concerns are small because you are still getting paid.  In that sense nobody pays the cabbie except him or herself, by the effort put forward.  Your game must always be one-hundred percent, with you doing your own refereeing.  Yesterday after nearly three hours all I had gained was thirty-three dollars for my 180 minutes of pain and suffering, of self-inflicted torture.  But finally, using every positioning trick learned from my over 25 years in the business paid off in a $63.00 (including an eleven dollar tip) airport fare which jump-started me to a very profitable day.  Yesterday then was like everyday for each and every taxi driver world wide: you have to prove it and if you don't you end up going home crying.  Which is why I said more than once out loud this weekend: God! I hate taxi!  And damn well I do and damn well I am tired.  Tomorrow is my 59th birthday and tonight I feel every mile I drove this past Saturday and Sunday.   Thankfully I only drove the equivalent of Seattle to Ashland, Oregon.  I really didn't want to drive over the Siskyous and coast down that mountainside  to Redding, California.  As a kid hitch-hiking I have seen enough of that town.  Though  a few miles south of there lies the parched town of  Corning and many varieties of olives to sample and enjoy at the "Olive Pit."  I do admit an actual ride there would lift my spirits.  And give me something to talk about for the next few weeks other than my usual taxi snarl.