YOU SHOULD BE COMPENSATED FOR YOUR TIME IN CASES LIKE THIS: My maddening scramble to beat a New Jersey Turnpike ticket mistakenly issued.

In the mail last week, I got a $50 ticket from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority for not paying a $1.50 toll the night of June 22 in Cape May.

This was a big surprise to me, because I’ve never been to Cape May, and I was in Lancaster that night.

And yet, from out of the blue, another state presumed me guilty of stealing, and threatened to come after me and damage my credit rating if I didn’t pay its $50 bill. It was my burden to prove I was innocent.

The vanity plate on my back-up vehicle, a 1994 Jeep I seldom drive, says “PLAIN.” New Jersey sent me a tiny, grainy picture of a toll-jumper’s plate that appears to read “PLATN.”

Good grief.