Originally published at National Catholic Register
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published at Jeffrey Bruno’s SubStack. It is reprinted here with permission.
“And can I get a Toll Pass?” I asked the woman at the rental car desk where I’d hoped to rent a car.
She turned to look at me with smiling, sympathetic eyes…the way a mother looks at a child who asks if Santa Claus is real. And with her deep southern drawl, she sweetly said, “Oh honey, we don’t have no tolls down here…”
And with that, the adventure began.
Actually, it began earlier that day—I just didn’t know it then.
It began at the gate for my flight to Dallas-Fort Worth when I learned that the next flight was canceled; I thought, “Well, at least we’ll get in before the Winter Mega-Storm Cora plows through the south…”
Wrong.
And two hours later, at 30,000 feet, we learned of our fate—we were being diverted to Memphis because the runways in Dallas resembled the ice-skating rink in Central Park. Well, at least the two seats adjacent to me were empty, making for a comfortable and, well, shorter flight, unfortunately to a city I had no need or desire to visit.
Win. Win. Lose.
