Over the years that I was a student at UMass Amherst, I drove many different routes between Massachusetts and Maryland, usually by motorcycle, including all the various fast highway routes. I remember there being some tolls around New York, and of course the ticket toll system on the New Jersey Turnpike, but it seemed to me this time coming out of New York that there were a lot more toll booths than there used to be. All of them have EZ Pass lanes for the commuters to zoom through, but since I don’t have an EZ Pass I have to stop each time and fork over some cash: seventy five cents, a dollar fifty, four dollars. Where did all these toll roads come from? Is this the result of Americans’ hysterical dread of taxes? Anyway with all this money changing hands you have to start worrying about tipping.

Having lived in Europe for so long, some of my command of American customs is getting a little rusty. I’m trying to teach Egon the finer points of tipping, since it all so mysterious to an outsider. He has no idea who he should be tipping. He bought a jacket in the Levi’s store in the Village and at the counter he turned to me, his face all concerned, and asked in a conspiratorial whisper if he should tip the guy behind the register. But it would never have occurred to him to leave money in the hotel room for the maid. He just has no clue. So I have been trying to educate him. Mostly this has been going smoothly, but with the toll booths I slipped up. At the first toll booth, the toll is $1.50 and I hand over a twenty and tell the guy I only need eighteen back, and he looks puzzled. He tries to give me 18.50 and I only take the bills but I’m thinking, boy, that was awkward, so, okay, maybe I’m remembering wrong, maybe you don’t tip toll booth operators. Then at the next toll booth, I’m overthinking it, and the woman holds out a quarter to me, so I try to take it, but then she says acidly, no, you give me a dollar first. The toll is 75 cents and apparently you are supposed to hold out your dollar and she takes it and drops the quarter in your hand in one smooth move. So that was awkward, too. So at the next toll booth which is 4.75 I wait for the quarter back and when I take it the guy gives me a dirty look. Or did he? For a while I think he did. But then there are more toll booths, and eventually it seems to me that nobody who is forking over two dollars every thirty miles is going to leave a tip. So I conclude, you don’t need to tip toll booth operators. Except maybe at Christmas and New Year’s, when you’re looking forward to your turkey dinner with family and you feel sorry for them standing there in the little booth on the highway.