Rattlesnakes Rattling---A Real Taxi Tale

I believe I referenced this thought before but given what I faced late last night I'll mention it again, that when walking in the American desert, as I have many times, the telltale rattle of an angry rattlesnake stopping me instantly, suddenly keenly aware of my immediate surrounding.  The sound is unmistakable, just like menacing words from a passenger alerting me to potential danger.  The major different is that while the rattlesnake is just attempting to avoid conflict, the human snake is oddly soliciting it by using distorted logic benefiting only, in last night's case, himself.  And just as I come to a dead stop in the Quincy Lakes coulees, last night correspondingly slamming on the brakes, abruptly stopping, and jumping out of the cab and shouting, "Get out! You are trying to rip me off.  I don't want your money!"

And this is what happens when you try to convince a veteran cabbie that, one, it was my fault I took them to the requested White Center Casino closed due to last night's wind storm and subsequent power outage; and two, that I was somehow overcharging them by then taking them to the Tukwila Interurban casinos, again, something they also requested.  That I reacted so quickly confused these snakes, not immediately understanding what was happening. 

No, I didn't want to harm them, far more interested in allowing them instead to slither off down the sidewalk.  I ain't no Texas rattlesnake barbecue cook cutting off fangy heads and filleting flesh for the outdoor grill.  All I required was some honesty, just like real and naturally acting snakes but all you better expect from this human subspecies is poison.  I don't care if I have immunity.  It's no fun to be bitten.