Today, I overslept. In itself, not a truly bad thing, but enough to throw my morning into chaos. Usually, it means a longer commute because I normally avoid the long lines at the toll plaza for the bridge by getting there before they develop.
But like I said, I overslept.
After spending about a half hour waiting in line to get my toll tag scanned so I could proceed, I get to a toll booth and nothing happens. The tag (which I just got last week, and have been using since) will not register for the toll collector. The lady in the booth says "I'm sorry sir, but you'll have to pay me a dollar if you want to cross the bridge."
Of course, I don't have a dollar on me. That's why I have the freaking toll tag, so I don't have to say "hey, do I have a dollar" before I leave Casa Kahunah in the morning. So she has me back up a bit, in hopes that the scanner will pick up my tag. the hundred or so folks behind me began to honk their approval at this particular tactic.
Which of course, didn't work.
"I'm sorry sir, but I can't let you cross the bridge." the toll lady says, a little smug about it.
"So, you're telling me that there's nothing I can do to get across this bridge now? I mean, I do have the toll tag..." I said.
"Well, to go across without paying is a 26 dollar fine... or you could ask the people behind you if they have an extra dollar..."
Great... so I'm either a beggar or a criminal. Thank you, but you can keep your stupid bridge, lady. I pulled off onto the special ramp they have for idiots who can't pay the toll with my blood pressure threatening to blow the top of my head off.
By this time, I'm already 15 minutes late for work, and still at least a 45 minute drive away. The tempatation to just go home and back to bed was almost overwhelming, but then I realized I really can't afford to lose a full day's pay this close to Chrismahannakwanzaka. So I went over another (fairly terrifying) bridge to get across the river, getting to work an hour late.
I guess some days you're the big dog, and some days you're the dog chow.
So, to lighten the mood, A joke I heard today:
A salesman from KFC walked up to the Pope and offers him a million dollars if he would change "The Lord's Prayer" from "give us this day our daily bread" to "give us this day our daily chicken." The Pope refused his offer. Two weeks later, the man offered the pope 10 million dollars to change it from "give us this day our daily bread" to "give us this day our daily chicken" and again the Pope refused the man's generous offer. Another week later, the man offered the Pope 20 million dollars and finally the Pope accepted. The following day, the Pope said to all his officials, "I have some good news and some bad news. 'The good news is, that we have just received a check for 20 million dollars. The bad news is, we lost the Wonder Bread account!'''
Gotta love a good pope joke.
1 comment:
How to avoid this in the future: Use the toll-tag-only lanes and just keep going. In morning traffic, the guy behind you will set it off for you, and it'll look like you paid the toll even if you didn't. It's the guy at the end of the line that will get stuck, because it won't register the same tag 2x in a row. And I don't think that camera thing to catch toll thieves works in morning traffic.
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