Centsless

We were young. Old enough to drive, but inexperienced on the road. Somehow, we bamboozled my mom into allowing us to take her car for the day. The thing is, we didn't tell her where we were going. I'm not even sure she knows now where we took her car that day. But the funny thing about lying is, if something goes wrong you're just plain screwed. Only one way to avoid getting screwed, don't let anything go wrong...

We packed a cooler, got some gas, and we headed down to The Keys. Not all the way down to Key West, just past Miami, south of Homestead, into Key Largo. Man we thought we were pretty hot stuff. We had a couple of snacks and a bottle of champagne. Hilarious, huh? Champagne? I can't even remember where we got it. Neither one of us was old enough to buy alcohol at the time. I think we also had a disposable camera, because somewhere in the archives there's actually a couple of faded photos from that day. We climbed on some rocks and ran through the water, never going swimming all the way in. I barely even remember how we spent our time. It's the ride home I remember. We must have stopped somewhere for lunch and spent the little money we had. Tired from the sun and sand, I laid back while Paul drove us home. Though we failed to tell my mom where were going, it never bothered her when Paul drove the car. She trusted him. On the way back, we were approaching a toll plaza- one we had forgotten all about while spending the few bucks we had earlier in the day. "Shit!" I felt panicked as I announced to Paul, "We don't have any toll money." I scrounged around, digging into the bottom of my purse, scouring the floor and the creases in the seat. This was long before the days of the SunPass, let alone the pay by license plate program. Again, young and inexperienced, I was scared. I wondered what happens when people can't pay a toll, and what would happen if my mom found out where we were. Then Paul pulled to the side of the road so we could try to collect some change (and ourselves). Miraculously, we managed to gather enough change, mostly in pennies. Yes, they don't like it, but toll collectors human or machine, take pennies. With a sigh of relief, we made it through the toll plaza and got home with no problem.

I'm pretty sure my mom is just finding out about this for the first time as she reads this blog.