Route Talk , Revised
A story of a commute that became an adventure
On Friday, November 8th, This American Life aired Episode 511, The Seven Things You’re Not Supposed to Talk About. These topics are unsavory, or simply boring dinner conversation, according to the host’s Mother, Mrs.Maria Matthiessen. The list included:
- Periods- as in menstrual cycles,nobody cares.
- Diet- Diet is a very big thing not to talk about. It’s really boring. Especially at dinner parties, you don’t want to hear what people can’t eat.
- Health-Nobody ever cares about other people’s health. I mean, if it’s something serious and it’s a friend, obviously you want to hear about it. It’s the common colds, the aches and pains; it’s really tiresome.
- Sleep- Nobody cares about how well you slept.
- Dreams- Nobody cares about your dreams.
- Route Talk- when people tell you how they arrived, or how they came, how they got on the road, which road, how long it took. That is the top of my list for what you don’t talk about.
- Money* (which was not actually spoken about, apparently Mrs. Mattiessen is guilty of this so it was omitted)
As the host of the episode, Sara Koenig had invited her mother to listen to a story about each topic, and then decide if This American Life performed a good story on that topic. While I enjoyed the story presented for Route Talk, I agree with Mrs. Matthiessen that the story was not about routes, but rather took place while on route. As a former resident of Los Angeles, I too dislike hearing about the various ways in which people take to arrive at a destination. I’m grateful that I no longer have to hear about people’s resourceful use of Mulholland Drive, or other roads around the LA area,but nonetheless I found myself the following day with a story of my own perils in passage, as I tried to make my way to see my friend’s first born child and new home.
As a dedicated fan of This American Life, I take it upon myself to amend their episode with the hopes of impressing Mrs. Matthiessen that at least one interesting story can be made about Route Talk.
A Saturday trip to San Jose
The plan was simple, meet up with two friends at the CalTrain station in time to catch the baby bullet train from SF, and head down to San Jose together to greet two of our closest friends and their new born child. This simple plan turned out to be, in every sense of the word, a fiasco.
That fateful morning, the commute was the last thing on my mind. I was simply going to ride my bike to the station, and then ride to their house from the San Jose Station. I was more concerned with what I was bringing: a massive 2 litre jar of home made butternut squash soup, 8 cups of beef stew for the newly minted parents who would have less time to sort out dinner; and my various things for an overnight trip. I packed this all into my camping pack, and rode off to the 4th and King Station, about 25 minutes away by bike from my house. While this may sound like a hefty amount to sling on your back, I’d come accustomed to the occasional Sherpa trip. Recently I sold my car and bought an eBike, and it’s been almost comical how much I can carry and still ride. (If interested you can read more about my ebike here).
I’d never done this trip by train, but I thought, how difficult could it be? Millions of similar trips are taken every year, it’s a regular commute. After my morning cooking session, the kitchen was in need of some sorting out and I was running a little later than anticipated; and thats where the trouble began. I rolled up to the station with just 2 minutes to spare. Theres no time for a ticket now, I’ll have to buy one on the train, or so I thought. I spotted one of my friends talking to the conductor, and passed a short statement along “Sorry, I was running later than expected” She quickly retorted, “You’re not the only one…I haven’t even seen Daniel yet”. What I didn’t know then as I was getting on board was that our friend Daniel was waiting in line for a sandwich across the street, hoping to pick up a breakfast bite before we left.
Two minutes after the train was supposed to leave, I spot Jana walking briskly through the train carriage, and Daniel a step behind. “I literally held the train waiting for you!”. Jana was frustrated, but Daniel was pleased with himself for making it aboard with a footlong cheese-steak sandwich in tote. As the train got to a roll, we settled in and began discussing what things we brought our newly-minted-parent friends. Jana looked over to my monstrous pack and inquired: What have you got in that thing. I proudly reviewed my obcure assortment of food items, I made soup, stew, and I brought a bottle of champagne. I’d had this bottle for over a year, and hadn’t figured out a good occasion to open it, but this seemed like a good reason to. Jana turned to Daniel and remarked that she’d wished she remembered the bottle they had. That’s when Daniel realized he was missing something crucial. He calmly stated:
While Daniel padded down his bag to double check, Jana’s fury set in. “What do you mean you think you left it! I put it right in the middle of the hallway. You couldn’t miss it!” Daniel tried to recover from his mistake, then planned that he’d get off at the next stop and go back to pick it up, but asked if Jana would hold his the weekend bag they packed, he’d be faster without it. Just as Jana was accepting the new reality of the situation, the Conductor came by and asked for my ticket. I was in the midst of explaining that I needed to buy a ticket, when he interjected with “I’m going to have to write you a citation and remove you from the train”.
“Wait what? A citation?” Apparently, you can’t buy tickets on the train. After some calm explanation that this was a misunderstanding, that I thought you could pay for a ticket on the train (like you can on any other public transport in SF), he let me off with a gruff “Get off at the next stop and pay there”. So now I was also getting off the train, but only for a short second to tap my card at the Clipper Card reader, and then hop back on, or so I thought.
Daniel and I stood at the door, waiting to hop off, when I spotted another conductor and asked how much time we had at this station. “You’ve got 2 minutes here, not to worry” he consoled. He could see I was anxious, and when the train came to a halt I bolted. The Clipper card reader informed me I was low on funds, so then ran to the ticket machine. As I was punching in my card details, I spotted out of the corner of my eye that the train was already beginning to move. “WHAT THE F#¢K!!!!! I thought I had 2 minutes!” I exclaimed. Perhaps they were making up time for our delay earlier; but there it was, rolling out of the station, with my giant backpack, my camera gear, my eBike, and Jana, now likely at a full boil as she came to the realization that I had not made it back onto the train.
When one train became three
Our simple commute plan had been blown to smitherines.Daniel had to run get on the next train going back to the city, Jana was now on her way will all of our baggage, and how was Jana going to get all that gear off the train? She had her backpack, their weekend bag, my 60 litre backpack filled with about 4 litres of stew and soup, and a bottle of champagne, and my clothing. Not to mention Daniel’s bike and my new eBike. I stood at the platform, bewildered by this fiasco. A simple series of small errors lead to chaos far stranger than I could have imagined. If I were to rewind just 5 minutes ago; we were all on the train together. We could not have possibly predicted that we’d end up arriving on three different trains. I needed to put my own plan in motion, and called the father of the baby, Arni.
“It was nice while it lasted, but Daniel and I are off of it”
We hatched a plan on how to manage this. Arni was going to drive over the the station and pick up Jana and all the gear. Jana was going to lock up my bike at the station, and I was going to retrieve it. Then it dawned on me but I have the keys to the bike,which means she can’t lock it up. Arni had a fix, He’d bring his combination bike lock and then we’d be set. I jumped on the next train, and Jana and I discussed the logistics of the plan. I explained the precariousness of the contents of my pack, but I also felt the need to acknowledge what had happened:
Our plan was pretty solid, Jana was able to get all the gear off the train without a hitch. But a few more complications arose. Jana took one look at Arni’s cable lock and decided it would be a little risky locking up my brand new bike with it, and left Daniel’s bike instead. I saw it as a perfectly reasonable excuse to take my new electric bike for a spin, and was happy to do the trade just to be safe. But then that meant I was arriving at the train station I’d never been to, and then look for a bike I didn’t really remember in detail. We figured out how to maximize our technology to resolve that issue though:
Half an hour later when I arrived at the station, the tone of the trip had changed. I was now on a secret mission to pick up the bike at its disclosed location and meet up with my friends at the rendezvous point. It wasn’t exactly Mission Impossible, more like Mission Probable. Nonetheless, our frustration subsided, and we could almost savor the fiasco. We ended up all making it and had a good laugh about it. The present Daniel and Jana made was worth the trip back home, and we each had a moment to meet baby Adelina, but we never did get around to drinking that champagne.
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