The Taxi Driver and I

I haven't really gotten into the personal level of blogging that marks the "real" blogger but today, I had an experience that jolted me a bit.

I badly twisted my ankle on Friday and today, Sunday, came into Jerusalem to have the foot x-rayed. I walked out of Egged's Central Bus Station and right there was a line of waiting taxis.

I approached the first one and bent over to ask: "you free?".

He replied: "no".

A bit taken aback, (I'm only in this country 35+ years, not including my year on Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz, [Machzor 39] and here, too), I shot out: "so why are you standing here?".

He began to raise his voice and yelled out: "ma ichpat l'cha?" (translation: what do you care?).

Oh, well, why should I care that he's hogging the first spot and I then had to hobble on over to the second cab.

Israelis.