Dear Turnpike Coin Machine,
As much as I have enjoyed our twice daily visits, I am afraid they must come to an end. You are a liar and a cheat, and I will not be used by you anymore.
Many a time I have sat in line waiting while you hold up one car after another, flirting with them, asking them for more and more of their change while you tease them and make them think they're going to win your green light, but ever flashing only red while they search for more silver change under their floor mats, because you are too good for copper change, and they covet that green light so.
So I wait, knowing that you save your green light only for me. I smile at you as I pull up, knowing that I have the exact change you want, and that your green light will surely be mine forever. I expertly toss my one quarter in your bucket, along with the dime that you began asking for last year. I have to admit, I hate you a little for that dime, but I sacrifice for you, my darling, because I want to move forward, and this is the only path I know to take. There is a part of me that despises you for knowing that I will give you whatever coins you ask of me, for knowing that you have all the control in our relationship and that, even if you asked me to drop diamonds in your bucket, I would do it, because I have to get to class on time.
I drop in the coins, and wait for what I know will come -- your green light. But you don't give it to me. Instead, you mock me with red, just as you did all the cars before me. You ask for more and more from me, but you're not getting it anymore, baby. After all, you're only a little machine perched on the side of the road. You can't hurt me. You can't even talk. I am through with your pitiful cries for more, more, more. I am through with accidentally dropping my last quarter on the ground, and trying to decide if I want to search for it or just throw in pennies and hope you don't notice the difference. It makes me sick every time I finally get the green light, only to be fooled by your non-stop "road construction", which consists not so much of constructing anything as it does orange cones, a lowered speed limit, one less lane and twenty men eating lunch. If I had only known that you were nothing but a lunch stop for men who drive big un-nameable equipment, I would never have given you my love or my quarters or my dimes, even.
So, I'm through with you, Turnpike. You are dead to me. I have seen what you are and it's not pretty. You will never trap me into giving my coins to you again. Until tomorrow when I have to get to class.
But for tonight, it's over. Forever. Till tomorrow.
