[This Tadventure© predates all others by a factor of “a lot” and was written before Tadventures© was in existence (back in the old days, I simply wrote under the heading, “Traveling With Tad”). It’s a fun little story about an experience when the lovely Rebecca (TLR) took AMTRAK home from Virginia Tech and I met her at Union Station in Washington, DC. Ironically, TLR is, in fact, pregnant as this is posted and Captain Ron (“The Navigator”) is no longer with us. Others may disagree but I’m glad to have finally stumbled upon this tadbit after so many, many years.]
Late last Friday night, after repeated directional briefings (including detailed maps) from “The Navigator” (Captain Ron), I set out for Union Station, located ‘somewhere’ in our nation’s capitol, to pick up the Lovely Rebecca (TLR), college coed extraordinaire and Fruit of My Loom. She was coming home for a brief visit (no pun intended) and chose, what turned out to be, a rather courageous mode of transportation. Eschewing automobile and bus, plane and bipedal locomotion, she selected the iron horse, AMTRAK, as her mode of conveyance. A fateful decision indeed.
Upon arriving at her appointed place of departure (Clifton Forge, VA) at the appointed time, TLR was informed that her train, hailing from the Windy City, had experienced the inclement climate so often found in the nether reaches of the Midwest and had been cancelled. (Yes, hard as it is to believe, the mighty and storied “Cardinal” which leaves the booming Chicago metropolis and heads to the seat of international power, is routed firstly through podunk backwaters like Clifton Forge, VA.)
No need to fret, TLR was assured by an able bodied AMTRAK employette (via telephonic communication device, as Clifton Forge, VA apparently exists sans AMTRAK counter/personnel/assistance), a BUS is being dispatched to carry you and all those of your ilk, swiftly and surely, where you will be deposited safely and in great comfort, at your final destination. Becky called me and informed me of the change of plans. After much discussion regarding just how darned much we love each other and how we would like to visit, she decided (I mentioned her uncommon bravery, did I not?) to sally forth and make her way northward without further delay rather than take the road more easily traveled, slinking cowered to the friendly confines of the Virginia Polytechnic and State University. Stephen Foster himself could find no finer a heroine.
For my part, I spent a delightful evening in the company of Captain Ron assembling and installing his new computer system. For my efforts, I was rewarded with fine fare consisting of a very large and tasty slab of dead animal meat; a rib-eye, no less. The steak done to perfection and accompanied by a steaming side dish of rice (no sausage), my spirits soared, despite my constant concern for the well being of my daughter. In time, however, I was forced to vacate the Navigator’s Lair and after considerable briefing as mentioned previously, made my way, carefully and with great trepidation, inside the Beltway to face the harrowing and hazardous streets of Washington, DC. In the distance, that damn dog barked anew.
It is not necessary to dwell upon my almost immediate loss of bearings nor is it beneficial to chat on and on about my lack of even the most basic directional abilities in a metropolitan setting. Let it simply suffice to say that the use of my ‘landline’ to call the Navigator coincided almost directly with my attaining passage of a sign reading: “Now Entering Washington, DC”.
He must have anticipated such a predicament as he apparently kept the city map open and within arms reach after my departure. He guided me, despite the incomprehensible manner in which street signs are aligned in that DAMN city, to the parking garage at Union Station. Huzzah! (Before one gets too high and mighty, it might be the right time to point out that this same Navigator, who effortlessly and flawlessly makes his way through the labyrinths of cityscapes with reckless aplomb, can’t seem to locate a single piece of real estate some 650 miles off the coast of North America commonly known as ‘Bermuda’ despite being supplied with charts, satellite recon photos, global positioning instruments, and a compass.)
I parked the car and deposited $.75 in a nearby meter and strode through the massive entry of Union Station, Washington DC. I approached an AMTRAK ticket agent who seemed preoccupied with staring at a clock on the wall while fervently turning pages in a tome entitled, “AMTRAK Employee Handbook: If It Isn’t Break Time, It Will Be Soon”.
[In order to properly express the true nature of my dealings with AMTRAK on this fateful evening, it is imperative that I resort to the use of actual quotes. Failure to do so would leave you, the faithful reader, with the impression that I somehow 'made up' or fabricated the whole sordid affair. Nothing, I assure you, is further from the truth.]
“Excuse me,” I said.
“I’m closed. Can’t you see that?” the dedicated and professional ticket agent replied without bothering to look up from her book.
“I don’t need a ticket…,” I started to say.
“Good, ‘cuz I’m closed,” she cut me off.
“One of your trains was cancelled,” I continued undaunted, “and my daughter was put on a bus. I just need to know where the bus will arrive so I can meet her.”
“Oh, you have to go to Customer Service,” she answered, finally giving me a piece of information I could use. “It’s just around the corner.” A bonus!
I left her to her work, a study which apparently involved the ongoing reconciliation of union mandated work stoppages with a timepiece suspended in her general area, and made my way to Customer Service where I was greeted by an empty counter bustling with no activity save the loud voices of supposed Customer Service ‘employees’ emanating from an unseen anteroom. I stood patiently at the counter ever hopeful of experiencing some servicing of a customer nature.
After a short wait of about a third of an eternity, a gentleman approached from outside the entrance door of the Customer Service Department. I had spotted him earlier as I came in since he wore the uniformed garb of the AMTRAK employee; plus, he had a nametag. His name was Chadwick. He had been deeply engrossed in conversation with another gentleman, the topic of which was most assuredly related to the safe and timely operation of the railroad as well as improvements to the overall customer satisfaction process. As near as I could tell, their conversation revolved primarily around concern for “ladies” and friendly greetings of many passersby with the term, “Wassup…..”
In any event, Chadwick finally made his way behind the Customer Service counter and assumed the air of a Fully Fledged AMTRAK Customer Service Representative. He drew himself up to his full 5’9″ height and eying me with no small measure of contempt said, “Can I help you?”
“One of your trains was cancelled and they put my daughter on bus to bring her up here. I’m just wondering where the bus will arrive so that I may meet her,” I explained.
“I don’t know nuthin’ about a train being cancelled. Where did it come from?” he asked suspiciously.
“I think it originated in Chicago but my daughter got on around Roanoke. I forget the name of the station,” I said sheepishly, experiencing a rather untimely ‘senior moment.’
“I need the name of the station,” he said. “I can’t find out anything without that.”
“It has two names…starts with a ‘C’,” I said hopefully.
“I have no idea where that is,” he said. “You have to give me the name of the station or I can’t help you.”
“If you give me a list of the stops or the schedule I’m pretty sure I can pick out the station,” said I.
[And here we enter the twilight zone of train travel. Hold on.]
“We don’t have that information. You’ll have to tell me where she got on the train,” averred Ace AMTRAK Customer Service Representative Chadwick.
“You don’t have a schedule or a list of stops for your trains?” I asked with incredulity approaching monumental proportion.
[I am NOT making this up.]
“No. Why on EARTH would we know where our trains stop?” Mr. Chadwick asked in a tone similar to that which one might expect had I asked him to lop off a leg to feed a stray cat.
I’ll admit to being completely at a loss for words for one of the few times in my life. I looked around the now not-so-friendly confines of the Customer Service Department in a desperate attempt to find another person that might have heard the utterance of a certifiable lunatic in AMTRAK garb. Alas, there was but a single patron, sitting alone with his shoes off and feet akimbo, mumbling to himself with great gusto. Birds of a feather, I mused.
We stood there, two stalwart creatures, staring blankly at each other for what seemed a full minute. Fortunately, Mr. Chadwick’s pal had made his way into the Customer Service Department and was able to break the stalemate: “Yeah. How would he know THAT?”
As luck would have it, just before the lull expired, I was inspired from on high, and rewarded by a flash of recollection during which the name “Clifton Forge” made its way from God to my brain to my mouth to the ears of Mr. Chadwick. “Oh,” he said. “Now I can help you.”
He turned instanter to his nearby computer terminal, typed six letters on a blank screen and was presented with, what one can only assume to be, some very serious looking train related information. He turned back to me and said, “That train was cancelled.”
Knowing that this moronic imbecile was the only thing between me and a successful reunion with my loved one, I repeated patiently my plight for the third time.
“Yes. I know that. I need to know where the bus will arrive so that I might meet her.”
“Is your daughter pregnant?” he flung from left field.
“WHAT?!?!” I stammered, once again caught off guard by this moonlighting Brain Surgeon in Customer Service clothing. I practically sprained my ankle as I leapt back from the counter, terrified in anticipation of what might follow.
“There was a pregnant girl in here earlier looking for someone. I thought that might be your daughter.”
I managed to summon up all manner of fortitude and weakly replied, “No. That wasn’t her.”
At this point it became obvious to Mr. Chadwick that he had expended all resources at his personal disposal. He had fully divested his complete and total knowledge of the AMTRAK enterprise to a stranger including a little tidbit in which he as much as admitted that they haven’t a clue as to how, why, when, or where their trains make their way, he had faithfully remembered the six keystrokes necessary to confirm, via an automation tool provided in support of his earthly function, that information provided by a complete stranger was true in its clearest sense, and, he had exceeded all problem solving expectations of a Fully Fledged Customer Service Representative when he reached a most obvious conclusion regarding the misplacement of a daughter in conjunction with the coincidental spotting of a pregnant female that had happened in to the Customer Service Department at some point during the day. His work was both beyond reproach and complete. He picked up his nearby handheld radio and summoned his Supervisor by saying, “There’s a man here who has lost his daughter. She’s not pregnant but he needs your help.”
The Supervisor in question, who, since I did not get his name, shall remain nameless, was able to overcome all of Mr. Chadwick’s efforts to date, and clearly and concisely said to me:
“The bus shall arrive upstairs about 10:15. We shall bring the passengers here. If you have a seat right outside, your daughter will be brought along. If you are not here when she arrives, we will page you.”
How hard was that?
