E-TAGS
Daily Telegraph - July 2007
FIRSTLY, I would like to point out that after my last column Kevin Rudd corrected
his Facebook profile. Now I know the knees of power tremble before me, I turn
to a familiar problem:
Dear “Toll Operator”,
I have received your letter demanding from me the sum of $13.50, constituting:
an “unpaid toll” of $3.50, incurred while travelling in the Cross
City Tunnel the stormy night of April 24, plus an “administration fee”
of $10 (for the “administration” of what, I ask: salt into my wounds?)
As you correctly note, I was at the time without an “e-tag”. This
was not, however, a conscious evasion on my part, rather an indication of the
fact that my use of your cursed tunnel was entirely involuntary, the result
of confusion at a crucial intersection near the “entertainment precinct”
of Darling Harbour.
Alien though such regions are to me, I am a charitable man and agreed to undertake
an outreach program involving the collection of several young ladies (I use
the term loosely) who were waiting for me in front of a notorious public house.
Can you imagine my distress, therefore, when, within sight of my destination,
I found myself descending into a modern Minotaur's labyrinth? (While I applaud
the efforts of our nation's investment banks to recoup losses on what has proved
a spectacularly unpopular and incompetent venture, must you resort to trickery
to increase patronage?)
Panicked and disoriented, I made several desperate turns, narrowly avoiding
numerous “bingles”, to find myself speeding toward the southern
locality of Wollongong. All this while fielding increasingly vicious cellular
telephone calls from a gang of drunken harpies demanding to know when they could
be moved to their next Dionysian revelry.
Finally, with a last desperate swerve I was able to exit and return to the city.
Not, however, before I was forced to commit an illegal u-turn and negotiate
the hellish artery of Oxford St, thereby running the risk of witnessing one
of the acts of sodomy for which it is notorious.
When, eventually, I did arrive at the public house to meet the “ladies”
I found my efforts rewarded by nothing more than shrewish remarks concerning
my automotive skills and sense of geography. All this because one fateful April
night I found myself in the wrong lane.
I must, then, most forcefully request you waive my fine on the grounds that,
ultimately, it was you who inconvenienced me. I understand several more thoroughfares
on our city’s roads are due for this “e-tagging” and if my
experience is typical, it is with no relish I await the coming vehicular apocalypse.
In anticipation of your response, I am your faithful servant,
Brendan Shanahan.
© Brendan Shanahan 2008