Had to choose between a quiet train car and a loud one with a friendly stranger - picked wrong

Last Tuesday I was catching the 5:15 out of Penn Station and had a choice between an empty quiet car and a car where this older guy was laughing on the phone. I figured the quiet car would be boring so I sat near the chatty guy. Turns out he was a retired clown who spent 20 minutes showing me balloon animal tutorials on his phone. By the time we hit New Haven I had a twisted-up wiener dog sitting on my lap. Has anyone else picked the wrong car and ended up with a weird souvenir?

2 comments

2 Comments

carter.casey1mo ago

Oh man, that's both terrible and amazing at the same time. I once picked the loud car because a guy had a guitar case and I thought we'd jam out, but he just spent three hours tuning it and never played a single note. Ended up with a headache and a deep respect for how long that takes. A wiener dog balloon sounds way better than my souvenir, which was just the C-sharp twang of disappointment. Guess we both learned that quiet cars exist for a reason, huh?

ericj451mo ago

Well, that's a lesson in car selection I learned the hard way too. Now I always walk the whole train first, because a quiet car is a lot more peaceful than a lap full of balloon scraps.