Friday, April 05, 2002
“That's it?”
Spring and I are coming home from the Starlite Diner in Ft. Lauderdale when we get caught at a rail road crossing.
“You really wanted to run that, didn't you?” asks Spring.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There's a good chance that the train will come to a full and complete stop right here,” I said. “Well, maybe not here but I have been caught a few streets north by trains stopping at rail road crossings and then you're stuck for twenty or so minutes until it starts up again. And do you know how long it takes a mile long train to get started?”
“So? It's the perfect time to have a party,” she said. “You crank the radio, get out and boogie.”
“Boogie?”
“Boogie,” she said. “You know, dance. Have a party.”
“Boogie?”
“Boogie. There was one time I got stuck in traffic, so I cranked up the radio, and started handing out soda,” she said. She used to work for a soda distributor in New Jersey.
“Wow … so you wrote the soda off as an expense?”
“It was free samples anyway.”
“Ah,” I said. The rail road crossing had been clanging for some time now and finally I heard the bellowing of a train horn. Off in the distance I could just make out the dark shape of a train engine coming into view.
And then the train engine crossed our view.
Not a train mind you.
Just the train engine. Rolling down the tracks, past the rail road crossing and continuing down the line.
“That's it?” I said. I was dumbfounded. Spring starts laughing and I'm left gaping at a train that wasn't a train going by. “We waited all that time, for a train engine?”
“At least it didn't stop,” said Spring.
