It's a Dollar

While Kara was last visiting me, we were driving along the freeway and deep in conversation. The tolls were immerging and as I went to find my money for passage, all I had was a silver dollar. Don’t ask me where I got it or how long I had had it, but there I was with no other option. We didn’t skip a beat in our conversation, and as I rolled through the toll, I barely looked at the woman working the booth as I handed her my rare silver dollar. Suddenly, she yelled at me, “It’s a dollar!”

I slowed my roll to a stop, but I was a car length past her, and I realized that she probably hadn’t looked in her hand; she just felt that I had handed her a single coin, and the price for passing was a dollar. So I yelled back to her, “It’s a dollar!”

She didn’t budge as she yelled with more force than before, “It’s a DOLLAR!”

I realized that she didn’t quite get my meaning that it actually WAS a dollar that I handed her, so I yelled back to her shaking my head so she knew that I understood, “It’s a dollar!!”

She looked at me with incredulous eyes and yelled, “IT’S A DOLLAR!”

I sighed and released my hands into the air in defeat and shaking my head said to myself, “It’s. a. dollar.”

I pressed my foot to the accelerator knowing that our attempt at communication was futile and as the car took on the speed of the freeway once more, all Kara and I could do was laugh and repeat to ourselves, “It’s a dollar!”

I wonder how many times this happens in this human experience. The words escaped me—why didn’t I just yell back, “I gave you a SILVER DOLLAR.” The car in back of me was on my tail handing her a nice crisp dollar bill and she was just leaning out of her little window from her waist waiving her fist in the air which was in fact clutching exactly what she was asking me for, but a version of which she didn’t recognize immediately.

Maybe next time a loved one infers my lack of attention; my misinterpreted gestures of love; misjudges how busy my life is, I will respond with, “It’s a dollar!”