Sorry for the Snag

The man behind the counter was unabashed in his exasperation. “Man, Mike, these USA Rail Passes are a pain in the ass.” He lowered his voice to nearly nothing when he reached the word ass, so that only the wetness of his lower lip reaching down to surround the unpronounced a and the brief whistle of the esses could be heard.

He was a nice enough man, though, and difficult to forget. One glass eye, eyeglasses, a strange walk, maybe a couple of fused vertebrae and a stiff crease in his pants. A lot nicer than the self-important blowhard earlier in the day who, in an effort to save himself the trouble a booking tickets for a pair of jovial newlyweds, sent them to a telephone hotline which wasted nearly two hours of their time, necessitating their return to the blowhard, who spent twenty minutes attempting to clean up the mess the hotline had wrought. It was good that he had found ways to manage his obviously immense anger–constructive things like demeaning the aforementioned newlyweds and very, very angrily stapling papers together, else who knows what horrors the man would be capable of? If he were to crack and have to be put away, who would remain to practice his characteristic blend of ineptitude and arrogance?

Perhaps only the glass-eyed man who finally sorted out the mess, albeit not without additional hassle. The computer system seemed unable to accept that the 16th of July is not more than fourteen days past the 6th. It was unable to book multiple tickets at the same time. It balked at the notion of upgrades. He shrugged. “These things were supposed to make things easier, and they do, until you hit a snag,” he said, and “Sorry about the snag folks, we’ll get you done here shortly.”

So who wouldn’t be thankful to him for sorting it out, even if he did curse the trouble to his co-worker? Who couldn’t find a kind of masochistic appreciation for the hacking and jelly-jowelled station security guard who flicked her fingers and made shooing noises to clear a path through the crowd? Or for the cafe attendant who commandeers the intercom to announce thrice daily that she’s going on her break in ten minutes and “if anyone wants me to get anything for them you better come now.” For the car attendants long on rehearsed directions to the bathrooom and short on small talk?

A disclosure. I am 50% of the newlywed couple. I am writing this from a coach class seat third car from the back of the Empire Builder, currently just about fifty miles on the eastern side of Malta, Montana. I just had baby carrots, fig newtons and a few handfuls of kettle korn for lunch. Reservations in the dining car are at eight; I intend to have the steak and maybe some wine. Tomorrow? Well, it’s hard to say much more than that we’ll be a few hundred miles down this set of tracks. We have backpacks, Macbooks, and tickets set to take us through Chicago, Boston, Brooklyn, New Orleans, San Antonio, Saint Louis, Denver, Sacramento and countless points between.

Rail ridership is through the roof, the year is 2008, and this is Amtrak.