I choo-choo CHOOSE you!

I took the train back from CT yesterday-- it was a fiasco.

The train chugged pretty steadily until it stopped about 30 minutes from Trenton, NJ. Where it sat.

And sat.

They made an announcement I couldn't hear. From the murmurs of passengers with better hearing, I gathered that there was something wrong with the engine. Or the brakes. Also, the air conditioning was broken on one of the cars.

I went to the Cafe Car and bought a Corona. The line in the Cafe Car became very long, as people got bored and frustrated and decided to drown their sorrows in a beer, or a bottle of cranberry juice (the Cafe ran out of water) or a microwaved ham and cheese sandwich.

I sat there watching the people. Eventually someone announced that yes, there was something wrong with the engine. Either someone would come fix it, or they would send another train to get us.

We sat. Eventually, another train pulled up beside us. It sat there a long time.

Suddenly a conductor burst into the Cafe Car. He told everyone, in a brisk tone, to exit to the left onto the new train.

How many people in the Cafe Car do you think had all of their luggage with them? The conductor was very unhappy with us.

So, after informing the conductor that we wouldn't have been sitting in the Cafe Car, luggage-less, if we had known what was going on, the people who were in the Cafe Car, myself included, began to snake our way back against 400 people and their various bags, computers, and mean looks to our seats. I got glared at a lot yesterday.

I was in the last car, so I had to go alone for a bit. I finally got my suitcase, and a nice man let me back in the line in front of him. I was almost out when I remembered the birdhouse.

My dad's uncle makes birdhouses. I bought a small one, which according to my mother "tickled him (the uncle) pink." The birdhouse was still above my original seat.

So, I put down my suitcase and forced my way (for the second time) against the line of people trying to get off of the broken train.

I was one of the last people off the train.

Interestingly, as I had passed through the many, many cars on the way to get my suitcase, I kept hearing the conductors tell people not to touch both trains at the same time, in case the power came back on. By the time I switched trains, they were no longer saying that. I think the Amtrak workers hate the passengers.

I was still careful not to touch both trains.

The icing on the cake was when we were all on the new train, they made us get out our ticket receipts and they checked them all. As though a few of us, who happened to be strolling along the train tracks in The Middle of Nowhere, New Jersey, had thought-- Hey, a train! I'll get on it and get a ride to Trenton!

I got back to DC at 10:08, only 2 hours and 43 minutes later than scheduled.

Before we got there, though, I got in a LONG line for another drink in the new Cafe Car. (I literally stood in line from Philadelphia to Wilmington, Delaware.) I was talking to the woman behind me who had been to visit her father, who had just been diagnosed with what she called "a terminal disease."

This fact reminded me of the thought that had floated through my mind earlier, when I was being glared at, that if this was the worst thing that happened to me all day (all week? all year?) I was in really good shape.

Right?