For whom the toll bills

I had to do something that was sort of privately embarrassing today, which was make out a piece of paper with car, date and time information, and mail a dollar to the Illinois Tollway (ATTN: Cash Handling Division!) for missing a toll on Sunday.

I knew I was fairly low on change when I got onto 94 figuring, rightly, that it was the quickest way for Alma and me to get to Twin Links. However, I had thought - clearly remembering something entirely different - that there was a full toll plaza somewhere along the way, when in fact there was not. I turned out to have even less change than I thought (a robust 13 cents), so I stopped, drew out my trusty notepad (doesn't seem so silly to have one at all times now, does it?), hastily copied down the "No change?" number, and drove off.

As it turns out, I'm not even sure why they bother having a phone number there, because the number just instructs you to visit www.illinoistollway.com. Apparently they're setting up a missed toll online payment thing, but it's not ready yet. So I had to fill out the aforementioned paper, stick a dollar into an envelope (kind of silly to mail a one-dollar check, and anyway there were no instructions regarding to whom you'd make the check out), and mail it off (which I'll do in the morning). Hopefully it gets there in time - but with five business days to do it - in other words, it only needs to be there by what, Monday? - and only Downers Grove to reach, it should be fine.

All this made me wonder briefly about getting I-Pass, but I'm pretty sure that's aimed at people who use the Tollway more than twice a year. I suppose it would be an excuse to take 94 up to Alma's instead of 41, but what does that save me, five minutes? Ten, tops? I don't think that's even worth the $50 outlay.