I can’t imagine life without an E-ZPass. It’s vital to traveling in the metro area, what with all the bridges and tunnels and turnpikes. I laugh when I cruise by long lines of cars backed up at toll lanes. Suckers.

Funny thing, though: The E-ZPass on my car now is, I’m pretty certain, the same E-ZPass I had when I was 17 and got my first car. I have no idea what car it was on before mine; it was in my family like jewelry. But I took it with me to my next car and then to the car after that, the car I drive now. The E-ZPass is at least 13 years old. My E-ZPass is older than some of you, most likely.

And in all the time I’ve been driving, to this very day, I haven’t seen a single E-ZPass bill. When I was in high school, my dad paid my tolls because I hardly ever drove anywhere off Long Island. When I was in college, my dad paid my tolls because they usually meant I was coming home. After I graduated, my dad paid my tolls because I was broke and he’s a nice guy. Now, my dad just pays my tolls because neither of us has yet taken the initiative to transfer the E-ZPass to a new account. And also, presumably, because he’s a nice guy.

I am 30 years old, married, living in a house in the suburbs with a full-time job, and my father has paid every single Northeast corridor road-usage toll I have ever accrued. Should I be embarrassed about this? Probably.

Anyway, this Sandwich of the Week required a trip over the Tappan Zee Bridge, which I might be more reluctant to make if I had to shell out my own $5. So thanks, dad.

The sandwich: Taylor Ham, Egg and Cheese on an everything bagel from Nyack Hot Bagels, Route 59 in Nyack, N.Y.

The construction: Two slices of Taylor ham, grilled, with a fried egg, a slice of American cheese, salt, pepper, ketchup and hot sauce on an everything bagel.

Important background information: Before we moved to Westchester, my wife and I figured we would have no trouble finding good bagels here. It’s still New York, after all. How could it be harder to find a decent bagel in Westchester than it is on Long Island, where we grew up?

And yet it is! It could be that we happen to live in a weird pocket of Westchester that is a bagel wasteland, but the local places all kinda stink. Good bagels need to be boiled then baked, soft and and a little bit chewy on the inside with a nice golden crust on the outside. To find bagels matching that description here, we have to drive at least 20 minutes.

Nyack Hot Bagels makes good bagels. Best in the area, in my expert opinion. So when I set out to try Taylor ham, I figured I’d first check their online menu to see if they had it. They did, so I went.

I realize Taylor ham is sort of a Jersey thing and so yeah, maybe I should have driven an extra 10 miles south to get the full Taylor ham experience, but I’m not going to take my chances with an unknown bagel place when I know a good one has what I’m looking for. Plus I had to take a jughandle of sorts to get onto Route 59.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Delightful.

When the bagel-man sliced open the bagel to construct the sandwich, steam came out. That’s such a promising sign. A well-made, oven-fresh bagel is amazing on its own, without even butter or cream cheese. I could only imagine what would happen with egg and meat and cheese on there.

And indeed, the bagel was the real star of this sandwich, piping hot with an adequate but not overwhelming array of all the bagel seasonings. The toasted garlic — at least I think that’s what that flavor was — was the most prominent flavor on the bagel, but every bite contains bits of poppy, salt and sesame too. (I should note here that Nyack Bagels, unlike some bagel places, puts the bagel stuff on both sides of the bagel.)

The egg gets lost here, which is predictable since it’s drowned out with meat, bagel, condiments and cheese. My first experience with Taylor ham was a pleasant one. It doesn’t have an overwhelming flavor, but it’s pretty tasty. It’s a bit like a more mild sausage patty, only sliced thinner and with (to quote Buster Bluth) a “smack of ham.”

American cheese and ketchup you know about. I was concerned there was too much ketchup on the sandwich, and it might look that way from the picture, but it didn’t taste like that. I can’t figure out exactly why that is, either. I think the bagel soaked up some, but I still tasted a lot of bagel flavor, not just ketchup. Maybe that has to do with the thickness of the bagel?

They used Frank’s hot sauce, which makes everything taste a little like Buffalo wings. That’s good.

The only thing I wanted more of in this sandwich was meaty, crispy pork flavor. I can’t really blame the Taylor ham for that because, like I said, the Taylor ham was plenty good. But add Taylor ham to the long list of breakfast meats that are not bacon. And truth be told, with bacon this thing might have been a Hall of Famer.

What it’s worth: I believe this sandwich cost an utterly reasonable $3.85. And my dad paid, or will pay — who even knows how that works? — $5 for me to get across the bridge.

How it rates: 87 out of 100. Every part of this sandwich was as good as I could have hoped for it to be, but no part of this sandwich was bacon.