Train Math
The 8:03 train back to NY is always always late and then always always slow so when expecting to arrive into Penn at 10:15pm is already pushing it on a “school night,” arriving home between midnight and 1am is completely unacceptable. But also, lately, expected.
So I book the 5:15 this time, instead.
But I think it’s 5:45. (?) So I show up at 5:42. I am not worried; the trains are always late- maybe it hasn’t arrived yet.
It’s already departed, so I ask to be put on the “next train that’s coming in.”
The next on the schedule is 8:03pm. So here we are again, anyway.
We are all just doing our best.
I take my newly printed ticket across the street to the bar, which has better wifi than the train station and settle in to do some work for a couple of hours. Accustomed to using the app, I am curious about my printed ticket and take it out for a peek. The woman behind the barred window who was hard to hear through the plexiglass put me on the 3:09pm.
I collect my drink and my snack and all of my many spread out items and my three bags and run back across the street in the rain to check the boards. The 3:09 train to NY had been running late and was rescheduled to depart at 5:46 (the “next train that’s coming in”).
But it is now pushed back again until 6:16.
So it’s 6:01pm and I am now enjoying my glass of rosé in the Amtrak waiting room. I am the only person excited to be on that 3:09.
I am sure that I spend my whole life trying to be good, because the universe is always good to me.
Flashbacks to 🚂 A leaving a station at a certain time and 🚂 B leaving another station, blah, blah, blah.
I had to re-read because I didn’t get the math without a spreadsheet 😇 (you know me), but finally got it, and said, good thing she didn’t stray far from the station!!