From zug.com
The Massachusetts Turnpike, our main highway leading through Boston, is a toll road. Riding it end to end costs you $5.60; commuting into the city from the suburbs costs $2.00, or more, each way. All those tolls really add up — the average commuter spends $1000.00 per year on tolls — but it’s either that or keep our massive highway construction projects under budget.
Recently, while giving away yet another $1.00 of my hard-earned money for the privilege of driving into town, I wondered: how flexible are they about the tolls? So I decided to undertake a series of experiments.
There are three ways to pay tolls on the “Mass Pike,” as we call it:
1) You can drive through the “Fast Lane,” which is a computerized system that detects a small device that you keep on your windshield, while pelting your car with gamma rays and slowly giving you cancer of the prostate. All Fast Lanes require that you slow your car to 15 mph, and some make you stop completely, giving new meaning to the word “Fast.”
2) You can pay cash to the friendly toll booth operator, who will give you change, and, if you’re lucky, a surly grunt.
3) If you have exact change, you can use the “baskets,” which are big scoop-shaped buckets into which you throw your money. The money slides down a chute, where it is then processed by either highly efficient money-sorting machinery, or financially astute elves. It’s a mystery.
You can see that the money goes to keeping the baskets clean and well-manicured.
Experiment #1. First, I went through one of the $1.00 toll gates, but I only threw in 97 cents. Believe it or not, I was nervous as I drove away — would the Turnpike Police pull me over and make me fill potholes with gravel and hot tar until I paid off my debt? Would angry Dobermans chase me down the highway, chomping at my tires?
Nothing happened.
Experiment #2. Emboldened, the next time I went through the toll booth, I decided to try throwing in just seven cents.
Nothing happened.
Experiment #3. The next time I went through, I decided to just write them an I.O.U., and tape it to the toll booth. I signed it “Mariah Carey,” because I figured she can afford the extra dollar.
Nothing happened.
This is great! I thought. All these years, I’ve been paying tolls, and it turns out they’re optional! What other creative payment options could I use to pay my tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike?
Experiment #4. This time, instead of throwing in $1.00, I decided to tape two pictures of rap superstar 50 Cent, because that adds up to a dollar:
As I drove away, I kept nervously glancing in my rear view mirror for the Toll Booth Police, or 50 Cent’s posse, but the sad truth is that nothing happened.
Experiment #5. For my next experiment, I made sure to check the toll booth sign, which reads “$1.00 COINS ONLY NO BILLS PENNIES OR CANADIAN COINS.” (With all that toll money, you’d think they could afford some punctuation.) Fortunately, the sign makes no mention of other foreign coins, which is the loophole I used for my next experiment. I consulted an online currency calculator to get up-to-the-minute exchange rates, then tossed in the following coins:
1 Indian Rupee ($0.02 U.S.)
15 Thai Baht ($0.36 U.S.)
11 Singapore cents ($0.06 U.S.)
1 Finnish Marka and 200 Italian Lira (no longer used, since the Euro came to town)
That only added up to 44 cents, so I threw in a couple of Chuck E. Cheese tokens as well.
When I went through this time, I heard the toll booth operator shout something that sounded like, “WALP!” I had been trying my little experiments at the same toll booth, so maybe he recognized my car, or maybe he was choking on a thick slice of ham. I didn’t stick around to find out — I got the WALP out of there.
Experiment #6. In olden days, one could directly barter goods and services without the aid of money. So I bought a couple of oranges from a local convenience store, which cost me about a dollar.
In my next run through the Mass Pike toll booths, I threw in the oranges.
They sat in the bucket, where I assume they remained until a Fruit Collection Officer came by to pick them up. I’m sure he enjoyed their plump, juicy wedges — after he removed the thick, encrusted peels that had been defiled by thousands of nasty coins.