I was pretty excited that day. The sun was shining, if I recall correctly, and everything was fine. I was going to go to Denver, Colorado for the weekend. I wanted to visit my cousin Kyla, but I also was using it as a means of escape; Berkeley feels stifling this semester. Everything was going according to plan, I packed my bags ahead of time, I left for the airport with a decent time cushion, etc. I called my mom to tell her I was on my way to the freeway, and then I had the sudden thought that I didn't have nearly enough time to get to the airport. Just a few blocks from the bank, I turned around and headed for the freeway. And this one decision is what lead to the day's unravel.
It didn't hit me until I saw the sign that said, "LAST OAKLAND EXIT," and I thought, "FUCK." I didn't have money for the bridge toll. This had been the whole reason I was going to go to the bank in the first place. And now I didn't have bridge toll. I couldn't rely on luck, I couldn't hope that a benevolent toll taker might allow me to slink by without giving money. I pulled off into the LAST OAKLAND EXIT, and decided to try to find a bank to withdraw some money.
Now, as you may or may not know, the most westward point of Oakland is a huge industrial area filled with groaning machinery and gargantuan gnarled metal structures. It's right on the bay, and there's no sign of civilization beyond the titanium heartbeat of the endless trucks, boats, cranes, and lifts. Everything seems to operate by some sort of mechanical will. There wasn't a person in sight the whole time I was down there. That is, until I found the one person I'd never want to find.
I pulled off the freeway, trying to keep my calm. This would be easy. There would probably be a gas station within a block or so and I could just get some cash and be on my way. Turned out to be much more difficult than that. I drove along the confusing, circular roads, all the while feeling as though I was passing the same industrial yard over and over again. My tiny Scion tC was a small guppy among the myriad whale-sized 18 wheelers. I swerved around the trucks, irritated, trying to find the smallest sign of convenience. Nothing. Nothing. I turned around, angry, annoyed, and desperate just to make it to the airport in one piece. I thought I was going back the exact way I came, but everything looked as foreign and familiar is it had looked before. I began to panic. I just wanted to get out in one piece. And that's when I got pulled over.
Fuck. Was I speeding? There's no way he caught me speeding. What the hell does he want I just need to get to the airport God I just have to cry maybe if I cry he'll let me go
I rolled down the window.
"Sir, you were stopped on the train tracks. I'm going to need your license and registration." I started actually shaking. The rest was a little bit of an over-dramatization. I was struck with the fear that I wasn't even sure if I had replaced my registration with the new one my mother mailed to me. I grabbed the "expired" registration and frantically and exasperatingly rummaged through my car, desperately in search of another registration sheet until the officer interrupted me. "What are you doing?"
"Trying.... to find... (I added a shaky composure to my voice and the quavering of a throat on the brink of tears) ... my registration."
"Aren't you holding it in your hand?"
"It's... I think it's expired (sniffle)."
"I think it's fine, just give it to me."
I had to act fast. I had to do something. I started to "break down" and fumble with my words, entering into a delirious, run-on sentence that bordered on dribbling and blabbering. It sounded something like, "I just... I... oh God, I don't even know where I am and I have to get tpo the airport and I just wanted bridge toll and I don't have cash and I don't know where I am I'm freaking out I just want to get out of here.."
The officer paused. "Where are you flying today?"
"Home. I need to go home, this week was so hard and I had a breakdown, oh God oh God oh God..."
"Where's home for you?" He was holding my license.
Fuck. "Boulder, Colorado," I lied.
"Alright, let me see what I can do." I played my part well, I pretended to have some sort of manic episode while he went to his squad car. When he came back he started to give me directions to the bank, and then he stopped. "You know what, what's toll right now? Five dollars? What if I just give you five dollars?"
I'd rather suffer and find the bank if it meant you not giving me that fucking ticket in your hand. "I... uh... no, I couldn't do that."
"No it's totally fine." I took out his wallet, and handed me five dollars. Then he asked me to sign my ticket. I think it's the only time I've met an oxymoron in person. So then I continued on my tumultuous quest to get to the airport in time for my flight, five-dollar bill clutched (semi) triumphantly in my hand. I followed the super nice asshole's directions to the freeway, and made it to the tollbooth.
So... between the hours of 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM, the toll to cross the Bay Bridge is exactly five dollars. And then, at 3:00 PM, the fee increases a dollar. Bitches need to make extra money as soon as rush hour starts. Guess what time I made it to the tollbooth. 3:06 PM. All I could do was proffer my five dollars and hope for the best.
"Hi, um... I only have five dollars."
"The toll is six dollars."
"But I don't have-"
"We accept anything. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, toll is six dollars."
"Fine." I started digging into my little stupid ashtray change dish in my car's console; at this point it only contained pennies and foreign coins. I started counting one by one, just because I wanted to be extra annoying. Cars began to cluster behind me and honk angrily. I kept counting. Seventy three cents. I gave it to the toll man. "That's all I have." He gave me a skeptical look, and I dug like, three more pennies out of the ashtray. Then he begrudgingly let me go. Awesome.
By this time I was already incredibly defeated and on the verge of actual tears. I drove as fast as I could toward the San Francisco International Airport, and somehow, with the aid of some confusingly placed signs, merged onto the wrong freeway. This was the breaking point. I pulled off the freeway to turn around and head back toward the airport, and stopped at the red light. And that's when I screamed. Not a scream of horror or excitement. Not a scream of shock or dismay. It was a pure, savage release of horrific emotion. I let out a carnal throb of complete and abject anger. I screamed until the light turned green, about four or five times.
Turns out long term parking is off-site, and you need to take a shuttle to the airport from there. I parked my car, got all my shit, started to run, realized I forgot my cellphone and retrieved it, and made it just before the shuttle left for the airport.
I rushed through security, throwing my possessions around with as much precision as I could muster, and rushed up the escalator to my gate. I reached the gate at 3:50 PM. My flight had left at 3:45.
