How do toll booths really work?

 Like many humans, I was not entirely sure how toll booths operate until I found out first hand.

It was late in the afternoon. I had just finished lecturing at the university where I work as an adjunct professor. I knew there was a toll booth on my route home, but as I approached it, I realized I did not have the appropriate amount of currency.  

As I waited in line to pay, I grew more and more anxious. What would happen? Would I be forced to turn around? Arrested? Executed?  

My minds raced. All three of my hearts pounded in my chest cavity. I watched as the vehicle in front of me sailed through the open arm of the booth. Hesitantly, I pulled forward and looked at the toll booth worker. He was a middle-aged human male with a stubbly beard and a mustache. The bags until his vision spheres indicated he was tired, and his stained shirt told the story of many late nights spent alone in the booth.  

”I have to apologize,” I said nervously. “I do not have the correct combination of coins to pass this gate.”

The man raised an eyebrow. His grey hat perked up slightly as his facial muscles pushed the rest of his scalp slightly upwards. 

”You saying you can’t pay?”

I gestured around my car and shrugged.  

The man began to sob heavily. At first, I thought he was simply distraught because I could not pay for my passing, but the sobs began to give way to joyous laughter. The man seemed to be overcome with happiness and relief.  

“Thank you,” he said to me through his tears. “Thank you so much. I haven’t seen my family in four years.” 

I watched the man in confusion as he pulled a small red lever in the booth. In an instant, my perspective was shifted. I could smell the dusty scent of old books and magazines, with the not entirely unpleasant odor of old oil. In front of me, I could see the man sitting in my car. I realized after a moment that I was in the toll booth. 

The man quickly threw a handful of change into the exterior basket and gave me a brief look of pity as the arm raised. The window in front of me closed automatically. He drove away after a moment, leaving me in the booth.  

I checked around quickly for a door and found none. I tried to open the window and it ddn’t budge. There was a large metal box in front of me with a single button on it. I realized I was wearing the same stained shirt and hat that I had seen on the man only a minute ago.

I heard a sharp ‘beeping’ sound and realized another car had pulled up to the window. It swung open and a young female human handed me two units of paper currency.  Not knowing what else to do, I pressed the button on the machine. A small door opened and inside were two coins. I put the paper currency into the drawer and handed the woman the coins. The door of the machine slid closed, as did the window, and the arm outside raised. The woman drove through, waving politely. 

Before I could resume searching my surroundings for a way out, an elderly human in a sports utility vehicle pulled in front of the window. This time when the window opened, the driver gave me one paper currency and a slightly larger coin than what I had given to the woman. I pressed the button on the machine again, and the door opened. This time it contained only one small coin. I placed the currency the man had given me into the drawer and gave the main the small coin. Once again, the door and window closed and the arm raised, allowing the man to drive through. 

Over and over again, this process continued. Window, currency, coins, arm. Days went by, then weeks.

In total, three months passed before a young man drove up to my window with the same embarrassed expression that I had worn when I first approached this booth.  

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I’m a little short on change.” 

I simply smiled and pulled the small red lever that I had not seen since the day I became trapped in here.  

In an instant, I found myself behind the steering wheel of the man’s red pickup truck. The man looked back at me from the window, clearly confused. I noticed there were a number of coins in my hand, and I quickly threw them into the basket. The light turned green and the arm raised. 

Without a word, I drove through the gate and finally made my way home. 

While I was at first taken aback by the nature of our government run toll booths, it was a wonderful experience to become acquainted first-hand with the inner workings of our buerocracy, and I highly recommend that other citizens take some time out of their lives to serve in such a helpful and mandatory capacity.