Every travelers nightmare…you get up to the toll booth and you are without coins, any coins, not even one penny between the 4 people in the car. I do need to point out that since we were in NJ, there were only 2 toll lanes, Exact Change and Easy Pass. Hello, what happened to Cash, Receipts?!

What occured next was pretty commical. I shall not use names to protect the innocent. We pull up to the toll and the driver asks for change. We all look around and say we don’t have any change, isn’t there change in the coin holder in the car? No. Oh no, seriously, nobody? Nobody, has change. We come to a complete stop in the toll booth. Driver jumps out of vehicle and runs to the vehicle behind us, which up until a moment ago was someone we knew following us to the occassion we were attending. Turns out, person following us has easy pass and has already gone through the toll booth, so we only manage to frighten the stranger behind us. Driver gets back in car. I say to honk twice and keep going because I saw it on TV. The toll booths have video cameras and they will hear you honk twice, know you don’t have change, and send you a bill just for the change and not fine you. Driver does not believe me so we continue to sit in toll and decide what to do. We finally notice the - Don’t have change take an envelope sign - which of course is accompanied by envelopes. So the driver takes an envelope and we finally emerge from the toll booth, leaving a string of annoyed and confused cars behind us. And then discuss the lack of change, which was removed from the car moments before we began our journey because we were going to a location that had valet parking and someone did not want the valet guys to steal their change.

Moral of the story, always keep at least a few quarters in your car. Yes, the valet people could quite possibly take said change but in the meantime it will allow you to safely and efficiently pay any tolls.

Toll booth of the future - you won’t need change they will either scan your car or scan your eye ball at 90 miles in hour and you won’t even need to slow down. But then we would miss out on funny stories like this.

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