It’s 4:00am in the morning and I am in my hack ready to pick up a fare. The drunken fare staggers out to the cab line and is promptly loaded into my taxi. “Out near Red Rock Station, I am staying near there…” and off we go to the opposite side of Vegas. Normally I would consider this a good ride, but I have a feeling about it and sure enough my instincts were not wrong.

Immediately the drunk extols his virtues as master of Vegas because he is a VP with UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). Just so we are clear, his first name is Mike, and I am not changing the name to protect the innocent. He is so happy with himself and so loathsome of the little people he must put up with he forgets that the one driving him is one of the “piece of shit masses” he so abhors. I have to endure this crap for the next 30 minutes.

Normally I like to get an exact address when I take a fare home, but sots rarely remember their address so it ends up being a game of “turn here, then here… maybe…” until we find the correct address. All the while this one wants nothing more than complain.

We finally get to where he needs to be and I tell him the fare and low and behold, the Master of the Universe does not have any cash. No I do not take credit cards, no I will not just let it go. I finally take him to an ATM and he is out of my cab and god riddance. But like most stories of this sort it does not end there. (You know, if you live in Vegas for more than 10 minutes you know that the cabs do not take plastic, another sign of the arrogant bastard.)

About an hour and a half later I hear buzzing in the cab and there under the front passenger seat is a cell phone. Great, just what I needed, the bastard who made my life hell forgot his phone and here I am, involved with this vile persons life again.

Well, I answer the phone so I can get the person calling him to get me instructions to return the phone. Well, the person on the phone is a Matt H., also in a drunken stupor and can only seem to mention that he is a creative something or other for UFC and that I as a servant of the people should go out of my way to return the phone because the Master of the Universe is really important and that was after all my job. Sorry buddy, but it is not my job.

After he finally understands that I am not going to bend over backwards for these oh so deserving Psion’s, he offers to make it worth my while with some cash and tickets. Oh, now you are talking my language. I tell him to call me back after he sleeps it off with directions to his office.

Hours later I get a call from Mike, “do you have my phone?” I tell him yeah and that Matt and I have made an arrangement to return the phone. I tell him to contact Matt for the details, but start all the way back to the other side of Vegas again.

The first run over to Summerland did not yield a return trip so was not profitable at all, even with a tip that would insult any self-respecting waiter. Technically I lost money on the tip because I have to claim more than the tip actually was. You can tell my enthusiasm for this return trip was not there, I was bound to loose at least an hour of drive time just to return this jerks phone. But hey, I try to be a good guy, so over I went.

I get over there and a receptionist demands the phone, but I tell her I have to return it to Mike so there are no misunderstandings. He comes out and demands the phone and turns to leave, I say excuse me, and THEN he give me a $20 for my trouble, no tickets. I ask him about that and he has nothing to say and leaves. By the way, was there are thank you in any of this? Of course not, I was one of the little people that he pisses all over.

Now some of you may say that $20 was not bad for returning the phone, and normally you would be right, but from this schmuck, it did not rate for having been insulted through the whole affair. Besides, doing the math, the ride out the first time was $40 and I had just done that again off the meter. Then there is the matter of gas that I have to pay for and missed fares that I was not getting back. The topper was that I would have to dead head all the way back to the Strip once more on my own nickel. No, for the return of that phone at least $60 would have been appropriate (after all it had all his numbers and appointments in it and the value of the phone itself was at least $400). So once again I am insulted by the lack of consideration his Nibs shows toward others.

So why is it that money and power make people act like jerks? Do they honestly believe that they are better then the rest of the people they deal with? He does not know me but he assumes that I am a nobody. I have some credits to my name including accomplishments that allow his phone to work in the first place. But because I drive a cab I guess I am a nothing. Dealing with this type of person is the worst part of my job, and in Vegas there are a lot of people very happy with themselves. The worst are the young punks who just got a raise and into something. These asshole do not know how to handle themselves and they insult everyone around them. Mike, a bit older and presumably with more life experience should know better, but I guess not and that make his actions even more despicable.

Money. It should come with a disclaimer stating that a known side effect is turning a normally decent person into a jerk.

BTW… it is my sincerest hope that others read this post and circulate it to the wider media so people know what kind of people are involved with the UFC. These people are taking you money and laughing at all the little people that pay their way. UFC will never see my support in a fashion from here on in. They, as far as I am concerned, are all jerks who work this organization like a scam. Anyone paying for anything they promote should know this.