Last week I got a text from one of my best friends at school. To keep with the anonymous theme, I shall call him Chris Wok, or CW for short. CW texted me saying "come visit me." Now ordinarily I'd say no, but CW will be studying in London for the next semester so I probably would not see him until December. I decided to check to see how much it would cost to get to him. CW lives 10 minutes outside of Providence, on the Massachusetts side. Flying would cost $400. Sorry CW, don't need to see you that badly. After checking Amtrak, I found that if I took the 10 PM train on Friday night, it would get me in at 7 AM Saturday morning. The redeye in the train world. This would cost me $150 round trip. Now we're talking. I decided to buy my train ticket to Rhode Island. A train to Rhode Island... this will be just like that Family Guy episode when Brian and Stewie are Rhode Island bound. There will be a talking dog and a singing baby on my train (Road to Rhode Island). Sounds wonderful. My excitement grew throughout the week.
It was finally Friday. The wait was over. I had decided to prepare myself for the overnight journey by going to happy hour with some friends. We had a lovely time, and I was tired by the time I had to leave for the train station. Perfect. I will get on my train and sleep for the next 9 hours.
At this point in the story you may be wondering, what happens to Flink!? Does he fall asleep and miss his train? Was there really a talking dog and singing baby on his train?! Relax, I will get there.
At 9:10, I hailed a cab and began my journey to Rhode Island. At 9:21, I received and email on my iPhone from Amtrak. It read:
Apparently some alcoholic skipper decided to play slalom with power lines in his truck, damaging a power system in New Haven Connecticut leading to the cancelation of all trains between New York and Boston. Thanks skipper.
Flink was not going to let this slide. After paying the cab driver a $10 fare to essentially drive in a giant circle, I called up Amtrak. Tomorrow was my brother's wedding and I was the best man. I needed to get there before 11 AM or I would miss the wedding. The best the "helpful" man with customer service could do for me was put my on a train that got in at 3 PM, with no guarantee trains would be running by then. I got a full refund, but still had to pay for my cab ride. Thanks a lot Amtrak.
In short, I'm now free this weekend. Anyone want to hang out?
Flinkey out.
You could have visited you dear old mama
ReplyDelete