So to answer the question you haven’t asked, if I had to do something other than what I’m doing now, I’d be a social scientist. The things that people do and why they do them are just too interesting to ignore.

The latest thing I’ve started paying attention to is how people deal with toll booths. I frequently take the Dulles Toll Road to work, which means I go through three tolls on the round trip (that’s two on the way there and one on the way back…I’m not sure why that is either…).

Now it’s not exactly breaking news that some people–too many people–don’t think paying a toll is for them. They’re special. But what I really enjoy is the ways in which these people act while passing through the booth.

Often during rush periods, the gates that prevent you from passing through without paying are up to speed things along. At these times, some people just flat out go through. One common method is the E-Z Pass buddy. They either have a car in front or behind them that has E-Z Pass and thus makes the light go green, though it is more fun to watch when they have the gates down, and this person goes real close to the car in front to get through before it comes back down. Another favorite when the gates are down, is the person who hopes they are going to get some help from the car behind them, but that car (often me) doesn’t pull far enough into the booth area to activate the toll just yet. If you wait back just a few feet, you can watch them scramble trying to think what to do. Then it occurs to them–I could just pay this toll thing, and this pesky gate would get out of my way.

Good idea.

Then there’s the fakers. These are the people who actually go to the extent of pretending they are throwing change into the basket before just driving through. Some people are really good at it, so good they might pull one over on someone who wasn’t looking for a violator. But then there are far too many people who really are just wasting their own energy. Their efforts look like they are waving to someone–but just as they start to wave that person had looked away, so they kind of cut it off at an awkward quarter-wave.

But then again, they are too important to pay tolls, so who am I to criticize. Though they really should get out of the HOV lane when they’re driving alone…nobody’s that important.