The Toll

It is not the cab driver's fault...

...that when he recommended we take the West Side Highway, it ended up taking us ten extra minutes to even get over to where the Highway begins...

...and when he said he'd take the Brooklyn Bridge, and I said that the Manhattan Bridge would be better, he couldn't really have predicted that--when he took the Brooklyn Bridge anyway--there'd be a flat tire...

...and an accident...

...and a closed lane.

Sometimes, life is just like that.

Traffic is unpredictable.

So, when I got all pissy and said, I've lived in Brooklyn for two years, and it's never cost me this much to get home before, it was really pretty unnecessary.

In fact, it was pretty much the equivalent of yelling at a receptionist when it's actually her boss that you want to murder.

My driver couldn't have known.

He didn't blow out their tire.

Or close that lane.

What he did do was say, Sorry my prediction was wrong.

But I was so mad by then that I grumbled the whole way and barely tipped him a dollar.

Though I realize he had no way of knowing that, though the honking was driving me crazy, my real anger lay with someone else.

Someone who--after weeks of absence--had written this morning...

...an email to say he had thought of me.

And the smoothest, quickest cab ride in the world wouldn't have assuaged my anger.

So I got mad at the cab driver instead.

The two of us in a car.

Hitting unexpected obstacles just where we thought the way was going to be easy.

Sometimes,

I guess,

life is just like that.