Terror on the tracks.

As you know, I love traveling, especially by train, and especially to New York. One of the reasons: it’s a never-ending string of adventures.

 

Take tonight, for example. I’m heading home on the Amtrack local from New York. We’re about one hour into the trip, and I’m dozing in my seat, listening to the surreal sounds of Pink Floyd’s The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

 

Suddenly, there’s a loud pop, and the train shudders to a stop on top of a bridge. Before we know it, the train is surrounded by fire engines. One of the firemen hops out of his truck and starts running toward us with a ladder.

 

Does he want us to climb it? No one knows! We’re not told anything, other than the fact that the engine died and we will be delayed for a while.

 

But it gets worse.

 

I’m sitting by the toilets, and because there’s no juice in the train, there’s no way for the turgid refuse left behind by whoever had last used the commode to shuffle off this mortal coil, no way to dispose of whatever had crawled into the bellies of the beasts that had squatted down to bid adieu to the remains of that egg foo young from two days ago. In other words, the train was getting progressively smellier and smellier. Honestly, people would go into the bathrooms, make audible retching noises, and then hurry the hell out.

 

But, get this! These same people, who had witnessed first-hand the horrors of this nasty smelliness REFUSED TO CLOSE THE DOOR, so a brown cloud of odor kept wafting its way toward us, its scent curling like a finger to dig its way into our nostrils, assaulting our senses.

Finally, it got so bad that the old man across the aisle and I took turns closing the doors, for our own sanity and the sanity of the passengers around us.

 

It was the stinkiest hour…of my life!

 

In the midst of this, one lady decided to call her sister, because she was supposed to be surprising her for her birthday (her sister’s husband had paid for her to take a ticket to visit sis.) She’s apologizing and explaining the delay, and suddenly the entire train bursts into Happy Birthday!

 

We are now heading back to New Haven, where we will probably have to board a new train. No idea what time we’ll be getting home…no knowing when this nightmare will end…pray for me…

 

**TRANSCRIPT ENDS AT THIS POINT**