Oh, I-Pass

I’ve been paying attention to the I-Pass. Strange thing to notice, I know, but after having a run-in with the I-Pass gods the very first time I used mine, I’ve found this magical little device to be unpredictably powerful.

I remember feeling so cool when I bought my I-Pass (yes, I’m a nerd). I mean, I’m one of the most impatient people I know, especially when driving, so the thought of having this device that would allow me to blow through the toll stops was really a novel and long overdue idea for me. Just before the holidays, knowing I’d be traveling more often, I popped into Jewel and picked one up.

Now, I purchased my I-Pass two days before I headed out of town for Thanksgiving. I activated it immediately after my purchase, and was assured that it would be active in Illinois in 24 hours, but warned that it may take an extra day for it to activate outside of the state. Okay, I thought to myself, that’s fine, no big deal. So, I hop into my car after work, the day before Thanksgiving, and gleefully pull onto the highway for a leisurely drive back home. As I approach the toll stop for the Skyway, I’m thinking, “Awww, yeah. Get to cruise right on through this stop,” when, unexpectedly, the gate doesn’t lift as I roll up to the sensor. A wave of panic seizes my chest. “Okay, maybe I have it positioned poorly on my windshield,” I think, as I struggle to pull the I-Pass off of the super-strength Velcro that’s holding it to my window. While I grapple with the useless cream-colored square, I become excruciatingly aware of the line of cars piling up behind me. I break out into a sweat as the honking starts. “Oh, God,” I think, “How many seconds do I have before the obscenities begin?” I frantically start to wave my I-Pass all over the front of my car. I pray that the people in the cars behind me can see that I really do have an I-Pass and I really am trying to get it to work; that I’m not foolish enough to try and use the I-Pass lane without an I-Pass. I clearly have one: see? That’s when I look at the dead little square and start to imagine it strewn in a million pieces across the highway.

I’m not foolish enough to destroy my 50-dollar piece of plastic junk, however, so I just keep waving it like some kind of crazy person as the honking grows louder and I hear shouts behind me and I’m starting to get angry that no one has come over yet to solve my problem. I start honking my own horn, trying to get the attention of the attendant who has been looking at me, but whose feet have remained miraculously glued to the pavement two booths away. She swaggers over with her self-important gait and I’m so frustrated and sweaty and red that I want to scream at her for prolonging my embarrassment. She approaches my window, looks me dead in the eye and says, “It takes 48 hours for the I-Pass to activate.” This really puts me over the edge—the guy on the phone two days ago said 24 hours in Illinois, tops—but I’m not the exploding type of person. So, I wait for her to tell me what to do. She says that she’s going to need me to pay with cash, wearing this smirk like she expects me to not have any cash on me. I derive some small satisfaction from the fact that I happen to have three one-dollar bills in my wallet—exact change—and can quickly resolve the issue with no extra hassle. I’m acutely aware that if she had walked over two minutes prior, I could have immediately resolved the issue without having obscenities hurled at my head.

I have never before been so happy to see that candy-striped traffic gate rise up so I can speed like hell out of the toll stop. As I’m pulling away I wish there were a place for me to pull over to let all the irate drivers behind me pass on while I duck under the dashboard to hide my tomato-red face. Instead, I release my frustration to myself with a few choice words, and keep my eyes glued to the road as the cars I’d held up pass me by. I know exactly how ticked off I would have been if I’d been behind me—like I said, I’m a very impatient person. I hated me for being “that girl” as much as they did. Luckily, I still had over three hours of road ahead of me, and that was plenty of time for the stigma to drip off of my skin.

So, today I was stuck behind someone in a similar predicament, as I drove away from a nine-day stint of job interviews and social events in Chicago. I was able to back up and switch lanes before becoming held up, and I said a quick prayer that someone would come out and help that driver in a quicker manner than the attendant had done when I was sandwiched between the stubborn gate and the line of angry cars.

Sometimes I come to a gate that’s been smashed off, presumably from some driver for whom even the I-Pass isn’t fast enough. I always laugh as a mere stump rises as I pull forward. Apparently, some people are even more impatient than I am. Or maybe someone else got stuck like I did, but they didn’t wait around to see if anyone would get out of his car, shaking an angry fist.

I guess the point is, that small square of convenience, coupled with a little misinformation, can cause a lot of trouble.