My lucky day!

Little did I know when I awoke this morning that today would be my lucky day. Very dark, very ominous clouds were gathering. But that's just meteorological. Lucky days don't hinge upon the weather. And today was a lucky day =). Several fortuitous things have happened.

First, I managed to just catch Donia as she was leaving for a tap class, and deliver her birthday present to her. yay! But that wasn't enough for me to realize it was a lucky day. Not enough really to make it a lucky day, just a lucky moment. And she liked the present too, happy!

I learned it was my lucky day as I drove back to Davis. The toll attendant informed me of this. Visiting the Bay Area usually costs $4, and that's not factoring in gas. It's $2 on the way, to get across the bay (San Mateo bridge for me), and $2 on the way back, to get across the Sacramento River. As I was about to hand him my $2, the Sacramento River toll attendant told me "Today is your lucky day, you've already been paid for!" Wow! That's great! Saved me $2 (and that's a big deal, I'm a starving grad student =) ).

So now I really want to know what's going on. Why didn't I have to pay the toll? Well, the bridge over the Sacramento River is still about 45 minutes to an hour away from home, so Steggie and I had plenty of time to postulate scenarios... Here's what we've come up with so far:

1. The guy in front of me didn't have exact change, and the toll booth we went to wasn't able to provide change either. So perhaps the leftover is applied to the next traveler, me. This explanation is unsatisfying, however. I mean, personally, if I worked such a thankless job as toll booth attendant and couldn't provide change, I'd keep the extra, not attribute it to future drivers.

2. The toll booth attendant thinks I'm cute. Now, I'm not so vain as to seriously believe this, but Steggie suggested it, so I'm including it here. Although, I am wearing a most becoming Stanford sweatshirt today ;-).

3. Today's some sort of special day where transit authorities are recognizing "green" cars by waiving their tolls. Since Steggie's a hybrid, this could apply to us. But I don't know. California has pretty high standards. A car has to be totally electric to be able to drive in the carpool lane without a carpool... I think that in other, more lax states, I'd be able to drive my Prius in the carpool lane...

4. Jed schemed with the toll people, and paid my toll for me. While I don't want to discredit Jed for doing something so sweet, I definitely wouldn't put it past him, this too seems a little difficult. I mean, I think it'd be a lot of trouble to do something like that. You'd have to figure out who to call, first of all, give them a good description of my car, and me too, I suppose, and have them distribute it to all the toll booths. And who knows if they'd even put up with that.

5. Some local business, radio station, or something, is subsidizing selective people's tolls. I guess to get their reactions. But this doesn't really make sense either. And it still raises the question as to why I got it...

6. The toll attendant is playing a mean trick, and sometime in the near future I'm going to get a court summons for not paying my toll... Yikes! Lets hope that's not it! =)

So yeah. All our hypothesizing seems to have led us nowhere. I really have no idea why I didn't have to pay the toll to get across the Sacramento River. Pretty cool that I didn't though! If you have any information about this mystery, please let me know =). I'm curious. It'd be neat to see if one of Steggie's and my hypotheses is even remotely correct...

There was one more auspicious omen today. Just as I got to Davis, I saw a beautiful, perfect rainbow. It was a complete one too, I could see the whole arch. Yay! I guess there are pots of gold in even Davis =). (aww, I'm too hard on Davis. It's really not a bad place at all. I just like to have something to gripe about =) ).