Life's Tolls

As mentioned in earlier writings Florida has an exhaustive amount of toll roads, roads that are the most direct way to travel to the more popular places in the state but, as the word toll means, you pay for the usage of those roads by stopping periodically at tollbooths to pay a pre-set amount of money before continuing on your way. If you run one of these booths a camera mounted somewhere on the building photographs the rear tag of your car and a few days later you’ll receive a notice in the mail concerning your wrongdoing.

Well, because I use the toll roads in my daily commute to work and because I hate waiting in those incessantly long tollbooth lines I opened what is known as a SunPass Account, and upon doing so I received a transponder that suction cups to my windshield. This allows me to travel through a “SunPass Only” tollbooth whereupon some gizmo reads my transponder and the amount of the toll is deducted from my account.

Both my car and motorcycle are registered to use my SunPass account and this can cause serious problems especially when premature senility sets in and I forget to transfer the pass from one vehicle to the other. When this happens, if I don’t have any cash on my person, I take the less direct way to work costing me a lot of time.

One morning I’d forgotten to transfer my pass from my bike to the car but didn’t realize it until I ran the first toll booth. BUUUZZZ! The alarm loudly sounded making me feel like I’d just committed a felony and at any moment I’d be sounded by cops on the ground and the air.

“No problem,” I said to myself. “I’ll just take the next exit [the next exit being one of a few no-charge exits—like any endangered species one has to know where to look if one wishes to just catch a glimpse of, let alone actually use, a no-charge exit when traveling toll roads] and hopefully the turnpike folks will take what I owe them out of my account.” Such was my thinking.

A few days later I received an envelope from the friendly folks who run the turnpike system in Florida. In this envelope were four, and this is important to the story, things. First, there was a letter informing me of my misconduct and if I didn’t send them the money I owed from running the booth my driver’s license would be suspended. Then there was a page with an actual picture of the butt end of my car, the tag clearly readable, followed by a third page explaining the various ways I could pay the toll. Lastly, there was a self addressed envelope for me to mail them their money if I so chose to pay via the U.S. Postal Service.

Naturally I called the friendly people who’d sent me the letter to explain it was an accident and to ask if they could just take the money out of my SunPass account.

“Certainly,” said the cheery young voice on the other end. “Can you hold for just a second while I do that?”

“No problem,” I replied.

To my surprise, in less than 20 seconds the cheery young voice came back on the line to tell me it was done. My transgression had been wiped clean.

“Anything else I can help you with today, sir?” cheery young voice asked.

“No I think that’s it,” I said.

What I really wanted to say to her, but I bit my tongue, was in the form of a question: Why couldn’t they have done this in the first place instead of buying a 50 cent stamp, two envelopes and three sheets of paper, not to mention the wages of cheery young voice and the other employees who put the mailing packet together, all for a dang 25 cent toll?!

Oh yeah, now that I think of it I also should’ve asked her how to go about getting a job there. Getting paid to be illogical seems like a something right up my alley

Feeling a Little Crotchity

A memo to guys of all ages across the world: KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF YOUR CROTCH! What, are you all members of the Michael Jackson (rest his soul) crotch-grabbing club? I don't know about anybody else but I'm tired of seeing guys grabbing their "Mr. Rodgers and his neighborhood" everywhere I go. Guys, if you have an irresistible itch use the bathroom. If you need to check if "it's" still there use the bathroom. For what ever reason you might have for grabbing yourself use the bathroom! A little decorum goes a long way. I'm just saying

A Quick Thought

A while back I wrote mentioned that I was happy that we don't go through the same process of recognizing and greeting each other as dogs do. You know, sniffing each other's behinds (of course it would be easy to avoid people you don't like just by using scented toilet paper."I could've sworn that was Jim but I don't recall his butt smelling like a pine forrest.")

Well, today I discovered another reason to be glad I'm part of the human race, and it has to do with courting rituals. You see, during mating season, to make themselves smell more masculine to the ladies, the bull elk rolls in his own, as opposed to someone else's, urine. What a lovely thought.

When I was single I did some pretty crazy things all in the name of love but rolling in my own urine wasn't one of them. In fact, any woman, and I'm sure there are some out there (not to say there aren't any men who'd like doing it), who would want me to roll in my own urine before courting her would be the first one scratched off my list as a prospective significant other. I'm just saying.

Almost Superstitious

I’ve never put much stock in superstitions, but this past Friday the 13th almost had me convinced that I should. It was the day from Hell!

It was really Thursday night that set events in motion. Let me explain.

I manage a sporting goods store in Orlando. The morning of Friday the 13th I was scheduled to do what we call a turn-around--I closed the store Thursday night and opened it the following Friday morning. Now, when closing the store it’s close to midnight before I arrive home, but it’s a 5:45 am wake-up call when I open it. Needless to say, turn-a-rounds are draining.

Well, Thursday night of the 12th, I arrived home close to midnight. Fearful that I might sleep through my alarm on my cell phone, I decided to change it to something loud and long, which I did. In retrospect that wasn’t such a hot idea.

The sun was peering through the blinds of our bedroom window when I awakened that morning of Friday. “This is not good,” I thought. You see, it’s still supposed to be dark at 5:45 in the morning. I checked the time. 7:15! Evidently, in my tired state of mind the previous night, not only did I change the alarm on my phone I disabled it as well.

In a panic I shot out of bed and fled to the bathroom, where I cranked on the shower and impatiently waited for the water to heat up—why does everything take more time when you’re running behind schedule? After setting an all time record for the shortest shower ever taken, I quickly dressed, filled my duffle bag with the day’s necessities (lunch bag, snacks, etc), grabbed a handful of something resembling a bagel, strapped my duffle bag onto my motorcycle, hopped on and headed out to work, hoping to not be more than a few minutes late.

Of course everybody without a care in the world was behind the wheel of their vehicles and driving in front me (another phenomenon when you’re running late), but hopefully I could make up some of it by doing 80mph on the turnpike. Such were my plans. Reality was a whole other story.

Not until I was too far down the road to turn around did I realize that in my haste to leave I left my “SunPass” home. A SunPass is an electronic device that, as long as you keep money in your SunPass account, allows you to enter and exit the turnpike without stopping at the tollbooths to pay. Forgetting my pass was going to cost me a little more time, depending on how long the line was at the booth. Then something akin to horror filled my heart, I had no money on me! Now I was left with just one alternative. I’d have to take the back roads.

Now, those of you who aren’t all that familiar with our turnpike system here in Florida let me explain the thinking behind it. In theory, users of the turnpike pay for its upkeep and expansion through the payment of tolls. To encourage drivers to use the turnpike system, instead of going around it, the road’s always laid out so that it’s the quickest way to and from highly visited areas: the airport, the theme parks, the coastline, etc.

But, not only does taking the back roads mean taking a less direct route to where you’re going it also means lower speed limits, two-lane highways, 20mph school zones, and a ton more traffic congestion. This all added up to one thing: I was really going to be late for work.

Arriving 30 minutes late, I hustled into the store, stowed my motorcycle gear on top of the lockers in the back office, and started putting my mind in manager mode. I then did a very foolish thing--I tempted the Gods of fate to toy with me a little longer by saying to a fellow employee, “One thing about it, things can only go up from here, can’t get worse than how my day’s started.”

First, I was informed that our cashier called in sick the night before. Well, we could manage one person down. But then a second employee called in about the time I got settled in. That left just me and two subordinates to work the store, a store of 65,000 square feet, until our mid-shift person arrived at 11: am. That person would later call to say he would be at least an hour late. Timing of lunch breaks just went out the window.

Well, to shorten this long tale of woe, foot traffic that morning was medium, which, for a crew of three was a bit more than we could handle. Then a big shipment of miscellaneous sporting goods, which had to be unloaded, checked in, sensor tagged, and assigned bar codes, arrived. This would take the combined effort of the cashier, shoe guy, and me, all while serving customers in our respective assigned areas of the store. ARGH!

Needless to say, at the end of the day, I went home worn out, frazzled, and wondering if there wasn’t something to this superstition stuff after all. But then I remembered my parents. They were married on Friday the 13th—55 years ago. Need I say more?

NOTE:Having a total knee replacement. I'll try to write a few pieces while laid up.

A Half Century

It happened! On October 22 of last year, 2008, I officially crossed over to the other side and entered Old Geezerville; I turned 50 years old! That’s half a century, folks, and I’m as confused and frustrated as flatulence in a fan factory.

Now that I’m 50, I’m constantly being reminded by the mail I receive that I’ve joined the ranks of senior-hood--I’m receiving more and more junk mail, mail that I once thought was reserved only for old folks like my parents and grandparents, from places like A.A.R.P. and fifty-and-older retirement communities, inviting me to join them because I now meet their qualifications for membership--I’m old.

Also, I can now receive discounts at movie houses, restaurants, and various other establishments. But I feel way too young to take advantage of these offers. In fact, I’d feel like I’d be ripping these places off if I did. Besides, to use these offers would be admitting that I’ve crossed over to “the other side.”

At 50, everything I eat and drink now gives me gas (who am I kidding, now-a-days just breathing give me gas), but I’m not yet old enough to join the wind section of the senior citizen orchestra, where I can publically and loudly trumpet “Yankee Doodle Dandy” from my hind-end without being considered crude. So, for now I still fight the urge, which gets harder to do with each passing year, to entertain the public with my “trumpeting” skills and so suffer in silence.

I’ve noticed too that the medical field’s attitude toward me is different now that I’m half a century old. I was in the hospital recently for the third time in 15 months for a kinked bowel, aka a bowel obstruction. But this time as they treated me for the obstruction I was kept hooked to an E.K.G. monitor to keep tabs on my heart, do breathing exercises to keep my lungs strong, and had to wear those butt-ugly white, tight, anti-blood clotting socks! All standard procedure I was told. A year ago they weren’t. But then a year ago I wasn’t fifty.

Since I turned fifty there are all kinds of things I’m encouraged to routinely do that years previous were only a suggestion. I’m now in the you-should-get-a-flu- pneumonia-shot-and-your-cholesterol-checked-every-year categories. And I’m getting pressure from the medical field to make sure I have regular prostate, colon, and fecal exams. Now, it’s about all I can do to allow someone to put his finger up my behind (the first time I had a prostate exam I warned the Doc, in reference to the show Star Trek, “careful there Spock, you’re going where no man has gone before!” And I wanted to asked him what I was thinking since his finger was tickling my brain!), but cleaning out my colon so the doc can use a scope to, like the bear who went over the mountain, see what he can see is more than I can bring myself to do. And as far as squatting over a newspaper, relieving myself, scraping up my fecal matter to carry to the doc’s office, not going to happen.

And speaking of all things medical, it dawned on me the other day how young’uns can figure out an older person’s age. You know how when a tree is cut down, the number of rings in the stump is how many years old the tree is? Well, by counting the medicine bottles on an elderly person’s shelf you can pretty much figure out said person’s age--the older one is the more bottles of medicine on one’s shelves.

Another thing I’ve noticed as I crept toward age 50 is the conspiracy amongst publishers and optometrists to make reading more difficult. A few years ago, I noticed the font size used in books, on medicine bottles, menus, etc. was a bit smaller than years previous. I had to squint to read them. With each passing year the print continued to shrink until I was holding these items further and further from my eyes. I finally ended up seeing an optometrist who prescribed reading glasses for me. The glasses helped but as time goes on and publishers continue to shrink the size of their fonts I’ve come to realize that if I want to continue to experience the joy of reading I’m either going to have to get longer arms or stronger glasses.

And I’ve noticed that as I get older other people speak softer (I wouldn’t be surprised if the general public owns stock in different hearing-aid companies). Oh people speak loud enough for me to hear sounds o.k. but not loud enough for me to understand what they’re saying. In fact, lately the most oft word spoken from my mouth is (as I cup a hand to my ear), “huh?”

So, as I time takes its toll and I creep closer to that proverbial hole in the ground, I at least can say my mind is still sharp, no senility--knock on wood, “Who’s there?!”