Amtrak: Catch the Delusion!
Read this travelogue from Guardian UK writer Douglas Rogers.
His experience is a perfect photograph of every experience I’ve had on an Amtrak train east of the Mississippi for the last two decades. Right down to the bomb scare (mine was simply a large battery underneath the train catching fire at 2 a.m. in the middle of The Badlands, but hey, it was the ’90’s and Fear wasn’t in vogue yet).
Look how HARD he has to rationalize his account. His train is stopped by a bomb scare – but it’s OK! It’s near a really quaint little town with a used bookshop! Really! It’s alllll part of the allure of train travel in America!
Also, keep track of the number of times Doug mentions booze. In fact, every time Doug mentions booze, take a drink because that’s how you keep face on an Amtrak trip: ANESTHETIZE!
Best part: Doug has to cut it short to FLY home because his wife goes into labor.
Oh, Doug.
Poor Doug rides trains like I ride trains: willing to take any level of bullshit because we are so enamored of old black and white pictures like this:
And it is not like that. At all. If you think you are treated like Second Class Citizens on this nation’s domestic air flights, you have never enjoyed being a third class citizen on Amtrak. I mean, they don’t even capitalize it, look!
Sad. Sad. Sad.
I WANT to love you, Amtrak.
[takes swig of teeny-tiny bottle of Amtrak merlot]
Why you got to make me hurt you like this?
[collapses into corner and begins sobbing]
