17 Hours Later: An Amtrak Train and America

Alright, that's not true. But if The Hallmark Channel picked up the rights to the trip (Which they would because their programming is horrible...The Ugly Dachshund? Really? Kristi Yamaguchi and Friends? What, couldn't secure the syndication rights to Little House on the Prairie or something? Oops, wait, nope. You have that, too.), they would inevitably give it some cliched, over-worked name that would let conservative, 45 year old housewives know exactly what to expect. And I think 17 Hours: An Amtrak Train and America is what they would title it. Or at least that's what I'd like to not believe.

So, I figure, I got some time to kill, why pay $130 for a plane ticket, plus baggage fees, plus all that bullshit and hassle when I could due the truly original thing and ride an Amtrak train all the way from Connersville, Indiana, to Washington, D.C., for $65?

I hop this train in Connersville at 1:15am on a Sunday. I'm so hyped on coffee that I don't remember saying goodbye to my mom and left my MP3 player in the car, which led to a fantastic situation which will be explained later. The first problem wasn't a problem, but an upgrade: the original train from Chicago had mechanical issues, so instead we rode a train that normally runs from Seattle, Washington, to Chicago. Cool. And because that is a scenic route that passes through the Rockies and national parks and Wisconsin cheese country, the seats are on the second level because, Heaven help you if you don't happen to catch a glimpse of those famous Wisconsin cows, vomiting up their food, then rechewing it, all so you can have some delicious cheese. Mmmmmmmmmm.

(Interesting side note. Type "amtrak train" into Google image searches. Mmm-hmm. That's right. Four of the pictures on the first page are of Amtrak crashes. That's a track record, pun definitely not intended.)

So I board the train and there's maybe six people on it. Cool. The seats are roomy, the cabin is cool, and the man sitting two rows behind me smells like cigarettes and stale beer. Classy. As the train pulls away, this is when I realize the MP3 player is not on board. Piss.

I'm halfway down the road to Snoozeville when the one other person who boarded with me in Connersville, a twiggy, thread haired girl of about 20 starts to moan and talk. Oh, by the way - she's NOT asleep. No, she's listening to music and spilling her life's misfortunes and prophecies all over the cabin. My favorite of her extended, self-pitying, and extremely creepy monologue: "I just want to be a mommy." Well, that clued me into two things. One, she definitely is from Connersville. (For those of you who do not know what people from Connersville are like, here is a sample. What you are about to link to may shock you. This is not safe for children, those who are pregnant or may become pregnant, or children who are pregnant or may become pregnant, like all the kids in Connersville, or those operating heavy machinery. More for good measure.)

And the second thing it clued me into was that the customers of Amtrak are fucking weird. I mean, I got a walking cancer stick with a mullet and his wife to match sitting two rows behind me, smelling one step above a Budweiser beer factory tour, Twiggy back there babbling about being a mommy and whatever else she was saying, and some guy who I swear to God, rode from Cincinnati to DC and asked every single person on the train where the bathroom was. I mean, he had to have used it 146 1/2 times. Seriously.

But, these are the experiences that make life worth living. Until, you go to get coffee at 6:30am in the lounge car because you can't sleep cause Twiggy is sawing logs thinking about her future as a mommy and her transit from Connersville, Indiana, to West Virginia (fitting), and they say, "Sorry, sir, the dining and lounge car will be closed the whole trip because of a water pipe breaking." Wait, what? Are you serious? Here I am, excited for the prospect of three square cardboard meals prepared by their chefs (who apparently, so the brochure says, are trained in the New York school of cuisine, even though half the menu is cold cut sandwiches. Was this a Jewish school of cuisine?) and I can't even get a cup of $1.80 Green Mountain Coffee.

So no food, no drinks, no sleep, and a ever-filling car full of so many colorful characters you could have set that train right smack dab in the middle of a gay pride parade and you'd have to wear sunglasses to keep from having your retinas burned out.

When Twiggy left in West Virginia, a young mom and her two kids boarded. The little girl was maybe just past one year old and quiet. But the boy, a three-year old named Jay/J/Je/Jai, was different. When he first started talking and screaming at old ladies to "hand over their tickets," he looked and sounded just like this kid, so much so that when his mom left with his sister to use the restroom, I almost tried bribed him with a dollar to recite the words to that video. By the end of the trip, I wondered what the repercussions would be for cold-cocking a three year old on an Amtrak Train. How long would the prison sentence be? Would it be worth being Butch's bitch not to hear screaming, crying, and whining for 10 straight hours? At times, I was already picturing dropping the soap.

I also had the pleasure to sit in front of an old, sweet grandma who had the most rancid, acidic, nose-humping, ball-busting farts that I have ever smelled. I mean, the term silent, but deadly was created for this exact situation. My nose stung so bad at times, that I had to disregard politeness and cover my mouth with my hoodie in order to breath clean air. I think the atmosphere on Mars must be a lot like that, which is why nothing lives there.

Around 2pm, they were kind enough to supply us with cold cut sandwiches and bottled water. One crazy lady came running down the isle with her food raised triumphantly, screaming, "I have my rations! I have my rations! Those Nazis aren't so bad after all." (Uncomfortable silence. Yes. You feel it. So did we. That was the quietest sandwich I've ever eaten.)

So I'm running on no sleep, half a sandwich and a bottle of water in a 24 hour period, a car full of crazies, and no headphones, with, oh wait, that's right, the Colts game starting at 3pm. Fudgecicles!

So, here's what happened. Around the second quarter, I broke down and paid $1.99 for unlimited access to the Internet on my phone, my worthless, small screened phone, not realizing that we're skipping through mountain gullies with as much service as a Vegan bar and grill. Nada. We finally break through to the United States again (I will never count Kentucky, West Virginia, or Texas as part of the United States. That's like saying, "Yeah, she would be hot if she didn't have that moustache and a third boob growing out of her back." Although, now that I think about it...), and my phone is being ravaged by the sweet, vibrant, cancerous tower waves that bring me the Colts score...when my phone dies. So, no WIFI for my computer, no MP3 with a radio, and not a plug-in in sight, save for, oh, what's this - the bathroom. So as the sold-out train fills up, complete with a set of six very attractive coeds who must have been on a hazing mission or something come on board and sit between me and the stairwell that only leads to the bathrooms, I keep disappearing for 10 minutes at a time to charge my phone while sitting on the john (pants up...most of the time), then come back upstairs where I can get service to see the game updates for 15 minutes before I'm doing that dance all over again. I even went so far as to comment to one girl, "I wish there were plug-ins up here so I wouldn't have to keep charging my phone in the bathroom." She gave me a look that landed halfway between "I hope you didn't stink up the bathroom with your constant, probably projectile diarrhea" and this.

In the end, it didn't matter, because the Colts made it back to the Super Bowl, I finally made it to Washington D.C., and she's a smelly pirate hooker.