My Life With An EZ Pass--E

Since starting this blog, my life went from QT with Briggs & Riley to QT with EZ Pass. I’m now headed to the Far East. No, not to Tokyo or Hong Kong or to other foreign lands of American boys who live overseas and write in characters and eat rainbow rolls and fried dumplings, but out east to the pretty houses by the ocean, farm stands, fresh air, the Candy Kitchen and Ina Garten. Oh, but I stop about 30 exits before all that. I don't even make it out to the Roosevelt Field Mall. Yup, instead of heading north and west to my last client spot, I’m now headed east. I know this from my days using a compass as a brownie troop, not from the GPS system in the car—my sister didn’t buy that feature.

Each Monday morning when I'm on the Long Island Expressway, I give a little shout to the car services veering off on the exit that splits to either LGA or JFK. I usually think about the weather and how that will impact flight delays and turbulence in the final approach for Team Members flying into NY. I’ll see a plane up in the sky and think about how I have probably flown on that very plane, but now I’m on in the right line afraid to pass a big scary truck or in bumper to bumper traffic and I haven’t gone faster than 10mph in 20 minutes.

Yesterday, the mid-size Avis rental was full with five Team Members, so I volunteered to drop two Team Members off at the hotel. On the ride to the Uniondale Marriott, Team Members were talking about ordering in room service or maybe meeting down in the hotel restaurant if they were up for it after working out at the hotel gym. I asked them if they got a good room this week--Team Members groaned. They went on and on about how the hotel is nasty--the towels are off-white and dirty, the carpet is stained, but the beds are pretty comfortable. Team Member said that the hotel location—in the parking lot of the Nassau Colliseum—was really depressing. I silently diagnosed them with a case of the Tuesday Blues. I cheered them up with, “well, on the bright side at least you get Marriott points.” This seemed to work—they mentioned a triple point special for the month of December.

As they reluctantly got out of my privately owned, non-rental car, I looked at them and saw the Jammahs of a few months ago. Tired. A little cranky. A little homesick. Dragging two carry-ons. Wearing the same shoes and coat as the day before. I drove away from the Marriott, got back on the LIE and headed west to NYC. I thought that My Life with an EZ Pass isn’t all that bad. I got back to my apartment, went to the gym a few blocks away, stood on-line at Duane Reade for 11 minutes, ordered in a hamatek roll and watched Barefoot Contessa from the comfort of my very own bed.