Last fall when Mr. FixIt and I were on our anniversary trip to the Outer Banks, we used a transponder for the tolls. When we come home from the beach, we always get a statement in the mail from the WV Parkways Authority telling us how much we paid in tolls and how much is left in our account. We don’t even open those because the account is automatically refilled from our bank.
Well, we received another statement two weeks ago and I knew we hadn’t traveled recently. I opened it and apparently our transponder wasn’t read at one of the toll booths. The normal toll is $9.50 when pulling a camper. So now, not only did I owe the original toll, I have been charged $25 in Violation Fines, $10 First Notice Fee, and $15 Second Notice Fee for a total of $59.50.
I have been trying to call them every day and I’m always well over 150th in line…sometimes 200+. Wait times on the phone have been over two hours no matter what time of the day I call. I’ve emailed them twice and sent a message through their website, to no avail. Last night, I finally was told I was 85th in line and my wait time would ONLY be 96 minutes. I stayed online, listening to their abysmal music broken by periodic updates on my queue status and how long my wait would be. (As it turned out, it took three hours on the phone to resolve the transponder issue. Victory!)
Why does it take forever on these things? Cutbacks? I mean…HOW many people could be calling the turnpike people on an average day, right? I know this is a state agency and it doesn’t have anything to do with the cutbacks currently being enacted in DC. But, I have a feeling we’re going to have a lot more trouble resolving things like this in the future.
We’ve become so accustomed to instant gratification. Ever since the dawn of the internet, we’ve been moving faster and faster. Information is thrown at us so fast, we cannot possibly commit things to memory. I remember when I was a lot younger, we had to remember all of our contact phone numbers. And addresses, birthdays, and appointments. Now we run around with a computer in our pockets that has taken control of our lives. Not all of us, of course. But, most of us.
Our brains have been hijacked and voluntarily held hostage by an electronic gatekeeper. We’ve handed over the keys to the kingdom and I’m just so over it. The world has become so complicated and much smaller than we could have ever imagined. We can find out anything about anything with a tap on a screen. Sometimes it just feels like we are puppets on a string. Maybe this is Oz and there’s really IS a Wizard on the other side of the curtain.
I don’t know what the answer is. For a number of reasons, I can’t unplug completely. I have to be available to people that need me. But I do long for the simpler days before all these shiny things were dangled in front of us like a carrot on a string. Progress is not perfection.
On another note, we went to town yesterday for breakfast as our Valentine. I should have known, when we agree not to get gifts…well, yeah. Mr. FixIt had a sweet card and some chocolates in my Big Red Chair. I made it up to him with a homemade pizza with sourdough crust last night. Ohhhhh, yummmmm! I used the same master recipe of Kate’s Soft Sourdough Sandwich dough for the crust and it was perfect. It got a big thumbs up from the hubs!
💜
“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” Romans 12:12 NIV
***Today’s Gratitude***
Today I am grateful for the patience to wait for the goodness in people. When I finally got to a live person on my phone call, I told her how grateful I was to finally be able to reach someone who could help me. Instead of expressing my frustration in reaching someone after two weeks, countless phone calls and four hours on the phone, I greeted her with relief and thanked her tremendously for doing the hard stuff. In the end, she totally dismissed the charges and helped me fix the issue that triggered the late fee. Win-Win!