“Yes, this job does take a toll on me. And no, I hadn’t heard that before. That’ll be $12 now.”

Inching my way along the asphalt one Monday morning, I prepared to stop at the upcoming toll booth and pay $6 for the privilege of crossing a bridge that had been paid for nearly 30 years ago. Surely the nauseating regularity of this antiquated ritual, steeped in serfdom and mired in bureaucracy, can serve no useful purpose. I condemn the mindless acceptance of this medieval vestige. Why, why do we still countenance the noxious bottlenecks of resource depleting bridge tolls? I decry the baronial pleasure bridge authorities seem to delight in as they benignly coerce me into yet another galling tribute. I resent these gatekeepers who are poised with a chokehold on the people’s high trafficked arteries. Trolls should have receded into the dusty horizon of history like heliocentric heresies or bubonic plague. Why, why must we still pay these infernal bridge tolls?