malaise*lithium

First let me say, despite what follows, that the most striking thing about the train has been how thoroughly and surprisingly civilized a way to travel it is. The cars are roomy and well-lit and mostly well-ventilated. The crew is kind or at least entertaining. You’re free to get up and move around the cabin whenever you like. The windows are large and clear and are furnished with honest-to-god curtains to block the brilliant morning sun should it burst into the car before you’ve made it to the lounge car for coffee. They keep a waiting list to prevent anyone throwing elbows for lunch, and you may pee–thank you very much–whenever you goddamned well please.

In fact, were it not for the passengers, I would find not a single disagreeable thing about the train. But the passengers! There are loud cell-phone jabberers. Teeth suckers. Insipid conversationalists. There are burpers and farters, people dressed in boxers that hang open, people ignorant, insulting, imposing, and ugly. These passengers, oh, these passengers. They’re such bastards.

Traveler’s Check

This morning, standing in line for coffee in the lower level of the cafe car, there was an exceptionally unpleasant woman with two swearing and sweating children racing criss-cross around her enormous ass like wobbly moons in opposition.

When we reached the counter she was so rude to the poor cafe worker, Genette (who was about to go on her break), that I was almost compelled to speak up. The woman bought two cups of coffee, a cinnamon roll, and two slices of pepperoni pizza. She paid with a $50 traveler’s check and squawked like a goose with its foot in a rat trap when Genette asked her for ID. I sighed. The non-bastard people behind me sighed.

When I finally ordered my coffee Genette said she was out of the full-size cups (the goose got the last of them) and all she had was eight ounce cups, but she gave them to me free. I left her a tip that was way more than 15% of nothing.

Joy

I don’t hate children. Really. I don’t so much as dislike them. It’s even okay with me when they play and laugh and whatnot. Children do. But they must behave like little humans and not like little Sasquatch. This afternoon a specimen of the latter ran up and down the aisle, knocking into any knees and elbows that hung into the aisle. He bashed into some sad sack’s tray table, splashing his John Grisham novel with warm Squirt. He had a package of Doritos, a Lego airplane, and not a parent to be found. His plane made flybys with spittle-fueled sound effects inches from people’s ears. He smacked and slobbered and left little orange fingerprints on people’s armrests. In short, he was a little bastard. So, then, when he clipped the base of the chair in front of me and fell full length in the aisle, simultaneously deconstructing his Lego plane and pulverizing the remainder of his chips, my strangled chortle was evidence not of schadenfruede but joy in justice.

The Smoking Closet

For some reason, Amtrak makes vocal accommodations for smokers. Every hour or so they hold the train for a while at some improbably desolate stop and a crowd assembles outside to light up. They announce these events well in advance, presumably to prevent some of the hopeless from using the bathrooms at a smoking closet.

It does not work. Last night I entered a stall to find a wisp of smoke still curling up from the bowl. The toilets on board are electronic and vacuum operated so there is no water to snuff the butt. I pressed the flush button and sat down, but soon detected the scent acrid smoke and the smell of melted plastic. I hurried (more than usual) and wondered if hand sanitizer would get the smell of cigarettes out of my crotch. It didn’t. It did sting, though.

Traffic Control

There was a man we heard about from out tablemates at dinner. A fat man who had involved himself in a long and aimless “intellectual” argument to which–as his volume attested–he felt everyone in the car should listen. He was a traffic flow planner. Our dinner companions knew this because it was his justification for his expert status on subjects ranging from geology to orthopedic footwear to the chimpanzee genome to the death of Anna Nichole. It seems that traffic flow planners are modern-day polymaths. I was justly surprised by this because, based on my experiences with the way traffic flows, there is a pretty low ceiling on the intelligence of those who plan it. But I’ve slipped from a description of the bastard at hand to simply making fun of his profession; Apologies. Bastardism is catching.

Our companions went on to say that he had moved from his seat into that of another passenger, sitting on her jacket, jamming his feet onto the rest below the pocket which held her books and her iPod. She returned from the bathroom and he wouldn’t move. He preferred the view from her seat. He said she had no rightful claim to the seat, and that she should move her things instead. She sought and received the support of the car attendant. The man still wouldn’t move. They called the conductor back, who apparently apologized and asked the woman if it would be alright if they moved her things to the next car up.

Just then a man, red-faced and puffing, burst into the dining car. Our dinner companions quickly identified him as the bastard in question. The host asked him if he had a reservation and the man said he was looking for the conductor. The host pointed the door at the far end of the car.

A few minutes later the man passed through the dining car again, and then returned carrying his straw golf hat {a known favorite of intellectuals} and a small backpack. He smirked as he shoved past our table, curled his grayish upper lip and said “got a sleeper,” to our tablemates.

Janine and I had asked about booking sleepers and, later, inquired about upgrades, both in person and on the hotline. We were told they were all taken, had been so for months. They must hold one or two of them back, though, just in case the conductor needs a place to cloister a bastard.