Tuesday, November 20, 2007

The One Time I Took The Wrong Train And It Was Really Cold Out

One time in the winter when it was about 5 degrees out, I accidentally got on the wrong train at Back Bay. The commuter rail is designed for commuters: people who do it every day and know what the hell they're doing. They understand which trains come when and where. Dumdums like me stand helplessly on the platform hoping that the train arriving at 4:52 is the 4:56 to Franklin and not the 4:47 to Needham. And we are always wrong. At some point during the ride, when I looked out the window and saw a very non-urban landscape flying by, I panicked, and got off at the next stop--not thinking that there was no real station building: just a place to stand and freeze. The next train in the other direction wouldn't come for like an hour. I called a taxi but forty-five minutes later, having lost six toes to frostbite, I figured they weren't really coming. I was very, very cold and sad. I may have mentioned before that I am a crybaby. So I cried.

And then a very nice woman let me sit in her truck to warm up. She was waiting for her husband. When he came, they gave me a ride to the next station. Wasn't that nice? What nice people. I am embarrassed that I cried though. But it was SO COLD.

1 comment:

Clementine said...

Oh, Petunia's gonna love this story!

One time I accidentally took the Braintree train rather than the Ashmont train and ended up stranded in Quincy for 40 minutes late at night after going out drinking with my coworkers. And yeah, it was winter. Good times, huh? I was all doing the self-talk, like, "Sober up! It's not so cold out here!"