The toll collectors walked off the job one day, and the Trolls trod in, and stayed. There was a cry from the ex-toll workers and their union, as well as from the general public.

The Bridge Authority dealt with the union in a very simple way: “You tell them to get out.”

The Bridge Authority dealt with the public in another simplistic way: “Don’t get the Trolls angry. Pay your toll…and don’t forget to say ‘Thank You!”

The Bridge Authority had not been this happy in years.

If only the union and the public had listened.

“TWELVE DOLLARS NOW!” Dave Troll shouted. He was big, bilious green and naked, and he had the odor one would associate with living under a dank and must bridge for a very long time. If you knew what the odor was like, then most likely you were a Troll too.

Doris stared at Dave, this being her first time encountering a real life Troll in a Troll Booth. In Westport, this sort of thing would not have been tolerated. Glassy eyed a wee bit from lunch with the girls, she braved going into Queens on her way to Long Island to visit her hunk du month. Her Chevy Suburban was high off the ground and put her close to the Troll’s face. Almost, not quite, but quite close enough. She could smell something awful, and if she wasn’t so vapid and intellectually mediocre, she would have said his breath was fetid. Her hair was platinum, her nails and lips red, and she wore a brilliantly white summer dress that went very well with her brilliantly white Suburban.

Dave bellowed again (well, in actuality, to a human, it was bellowing. Dave was mildly perturbed): “TWELVE DOLLARS NOW!”

“Hold your horses, or whatever you Trolls hold,” she said, shooing him away with her finger tips while also ignoring Dave’s glare. Doris rifled through her large pebble grain leather  shoulder bag. Dave looked at it in Troll-like exasperation, as the seconds were ticking by, and a Troll is nothing but anal about time.

He started “TWELVE DOL…” when Doris gave him The Look! that she had had handed down from her Mother, and her Grandmother, and her  maternal lineage going  further back than Doris could count. Yes, I could make the comment about how much Doris could count, but why bother. She shoved the money into Dave’s outstretched hand, making sure not to touch it and doing a silent “ew” face when doing so.

Dave clenched his fist around the bills, making sure before he did so that it was indeed TWELVE DOLLARS. He was just about to wish her a safe journey across his bridge, when Doris did what she should not have done. She put the gas guzzler in gear and started to leave, not even thinking about saying…

“YOU FORGOT TO SAY THANK YOU” Yelled Dave a lot louder than before. He reached over (merely a flex of his arm), ripped the driver door off, threw it over the side of the bridge (which was quite a distance from the Troll Booth he was at, just so you know), picked up Doris and bit her head off. Literally. Off. Chomp. While swallowing (his mother told him to chew at least 29 times) he threw the Suburban over the side of the bridge. Safety First for other drivers had been drilled into him.

Dave got back into his haven. “NEXT! TWELVE DOLLARS NOW!”

There were very few incidents at the bridges after that. There were the initial problems with the Unions, but too many Union Lunches (the union leaders being the lunch) curbed that pretty quickly.  A few other problems, here and there, presented themselves,  especially later at night, where the hat wearing (backwards, more times than not, but not always), I-Own-The-Road SUV marauders tried to get away with things.

You don’t get away with things with Trolls.

The Bridge Authority was hoping for equal success with the Red Caps who took over the tunnels. Time would tell.