barricades and train snafus

The thing about weekend road trips is that they don’t feel like actual weekends. You get home on Sunday afternoon, ready for the weekend to start, and you realize it’s almost over. This time around was fortunate: boss gave us Monday July 3 off, and of course the 4th was Independence Day, so I got an entire weekend to enjoy at home. But it’s over now.

Summer’s in full swing. The walk down to the train station in the morning was humid and sweltering. There were signs warning of train line construction, and in the distance I could see various maintenance vehicles parked around the station. I thought, what if trains are canceled? I imagined texting the boss, explaining the situation and saying “but I could Uber downtown…” (this would be an expensive one-hour trip) and she’d probably say “no, it’s fine, you can work from home until the trains are fixed.” At home, maybe I’d go back to bed. Or, since I was awake already, maybe I’d just make my morning mocha, sit down at my computer, go about my normal routine…

I was interrupted from my reverie by reaching the train station. I slipped around the barricade at the intersection and got on the train platform. The train came like normal. It wasn’t even delayed. (So why did they barricade the sidewalk leading to the platform? Who knows.)

As it turned out, the train snafu occurred on the way home. When I got to the station downtown, there was a message that the 5:00 train was delayed (not my train/not my problem), and the 5:30 was boarding from track 5. So I got on. Shortly thereafter there was an announcement that the train had been redesignated as not our train. We all got off. Apparently our actual train broke down and they were trying to figure something out. We stood around in the sweltering heat until they announced the 5:30 was boarding from track 4 (we all walked over there) and then they announced it was actually boarding from track 2 (we all walked over there) and we still had to wait like ten more minutes for the train to arrive. What a fracas. The old station had its share of late trains, but at least the platforms were indoors(ish) and they didn’t generally shuffle us all around the place.

Also, it started storming as I was walking home from the train station. My phone helpfully notified me that there was a severe thunderstorm warning. Yeah, yeah, I get it! I’m going home!