Nightmare Train On The Old Back Road

Somewhere on the old back roads of Fayette County, a bugaboo still haunts me to this day. I still wake up in cold sweats thinking about it. It’s not often that you stare death right in the eyes, but that image will forever haunt me. I feel I can talk about it now, without the aid of a blankey. But, I warn you, this story is not for the faint of heart, or at least those who don’t want to waste a good five minutes. You have been warned.

I was 20 years old and enjoying the summer break from school. This summer was particularly memorable as I had just become single and was unemployed. Believe me, those two things are very much agreeable because if you’ve ever been bumming it for a summer, at your folks, and you have a girlfriend it becomes an issue. As a single man, you could make the money last a little longer. It’s not that I didn’t want to have a job but I was quite content with doing the little stuff like cutting my grandmother’s grass. Now, I was paid $20 to do the job at my grandma’s house and that was 1995. I don’t know what the going rate is for a high school or college kid to come cut your grass, today. I don’t want to know. 15 years later, cutting my yard is one of my few activities that can qualify as exercise. If I give that up, you might as well call Maury or Geraldo and have them cut me out of my house, right now.

I might make it to my grandma’s in the morning or the late afternoon, depending on how much slacking I planned on doing or how late I had been up the night before. While the yard was extremely graded from top to bottom, I had the use of a riding mower. It wasn’t too difficult to do, but I did use a push mower for the front so that I could do the edging around the walks and driveway. Otherwise I rode a Craftsman riding mower. A couple of times I had driven that thing into a tree and on a few occasions thought I was going to flip over after popping a wheelie from going up the steep hill without leaning over the steering wheel. Then, once I reached the top, I had to remember to lean over the left or right side as I cut back and forth along the hill. There was a definite strategy and method to cutting her yard without rolling the mower.

This day in question was a rather hot one, if I recall correctly, or perhaps I just decided to slack all day and cut the yard after dinner. It usually took me all of two hours to finish the yard. I was just finishing up the front as the sun dipped below the horizon. It was an eerie evening, hot and sticky, yet something gave me a chill. It was one of those “The Lost Boys are coming” feelings. I decided to quickly get all the mowing equipment back into the garage and head out before Kiefer Sutherland ripped the roof off of my 84’ Pontiac Firebird.

For some reason, I decided to go the back way home. If you think about the geography of rural Southwestern Pennsylvania, most of it IS back roads. Instead of the more direct and major route that took me across the Dawson Bridge and up route 201 towards Dunbar Township, I decided to swing out past the old racetrack and head up 819 towards the Mark I bar, turning and heading down Hickory Square Road by the Old Overholt Distillery and up through Broadford into the North end of Connellsville.

As I made the turn at the church, continuing on Hickory Square Road, I knew I would be coming down to Broadford Road, which sat just beyond a set of railroad tracks. I made that mental note because I wanted to slow up and take it easy going over those tracks. I didn’t want to lose my tail pipe, again. The year before, I was out driving with my, then, girlfriend in Tarrs, PA and we had come across a set of tracks on old 119. My entire exhaust system broke free from the undercarriage and drug on the ground. Yes, I was going too fast and forgot about the tracks. Young and stupid, I felt the only thing I could do was to pull the muffler and tail pipe completely off and haul it home. I probably did a hell of a lot of damage to the car, at my father’s expense. Well, I did try to tie it up to the spoiler, but all I had was a rope that was quickly burned through by the heat of the exhaust. So, I drove on the shoulder and drug it in the rocks until it fell off, probably due to extensive rust. I plopped it into my back seat and drove home. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake again, and on a much scarier road, all by myself. Nope, this time I was going to gently cross the tracks at the bottom of the hill.

By the time I reached the bottom of Hickory Square Road it was completely dark. My driver’s side window had been open to take advantage of the cooler air that had come with the darkness. I took my time and stopped just past the tracks at the sign. The intersection sat on a bend and you had to pull all the way across the tracks to the stop sign in order to see if any traffic was coming. My focus was primarily forward and I looked in that direction first as the road curved in front of me towards the right. As I was finishing up my scan of that direction , I began turning my head and that’s when it happened. I received the fright of my young life, and nearly shit myself, right there.

I came face to face with this beast, lurking in the darkness. It had to be at least ten foot tall, all black with a huge face. There were also no streetlights, save one eerie looking dusk to dawn light affixed to a pole to my left. That orange light shone over top of the beast and somewhat blinded me from getting a good look at this monstrosity sitting right outside my open car window. My life flashed before eyes and it was a pretty short flash. After a split second, the initial shock wore off I regained my composure enough to see what it was.

It was a train. A huge ass black locomotive was a mere five feet from my driver’s side window. Panic set in twice in as many seconds. How the hell did I not see it? There were no sirens, no horns, no warning. The sight of it in the dark nearly stopped my heart and started my bowels. I prepared for impact but it wasn’t moving. It was parked. The orange light from the pole had partially blinded me and made me think it was the engine’s light shining at me. Here I was, scared of a parked car.

After I calmed down, I laughed at how foolish I was. It was that relieved laughter you get after a scare that kind of jolts the adrenaline and endorphins. I wish that I had brought a camera with me but at the time I would have not had one that could have taken a decent nighttime picture. After a day or so, the train was gone and I never saw it again. In fact, I have just recently been down that road once in the last 15 years, but I’ll never forget that initial two seconds of sheer terror and 15 minutes of embarrassment after I shrieked like a little girl. Thankfully, no one else was out that night to hear me, except maybe the Lost Boys sitting up in the tree waiting to rip the roof off my car.

Boo!

Screams From An Italian Restaurant

I will start off by saying that ten years ago, I would be guilty of this. Although, I don’t know why. I question it because almost 15 years ago, at the age of 20, I would have been content to mosey into my favorite dark and smoky bar, Hemingway’s, nestled below the dorms of The University of Pittsburgh and just slink into a set of tables, near the back and just hang out. No loud whooping it up. No lined up shots along the bar ready to toss back. Simply a few us, just sitting there, enjoying our drinks and loving life as an unemployed actor, contemplating life after college.

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone I was drinking underage in a bar. Well, it’s not like any famous NFL quarterback, with questionable morals was there buying me drinks… at least because I’m a guy. (I had a whole tangent written involving the joke about keeping a guy’s “you know what” in his wife’s purse. I’ll just skip it.) My point is that, yeah, I went a little nuts when I turned 21 and spent my hard earned pay partying after a long day of working for an Amusement Park in Ohio, still, after that year I retreated back to my cloak of tortured, misunderstood, old, before his time, soul. That was until I graduated college and had to get a real job.

Then it was, “Hey a bunch of friends are going to the local sports bar for wings. Let’s be loud and tell jokes and make lots of noise.” The 21 year old me would have glaringly side-eyed the 25 year old me for being annoying. Still, it was a simple phase that I grew out of before I hit 30. I very rarely drink except for a holiday which may be at most a glass of wine with dinner. However, I like to go and enjoy a good dinner with company. Usually, on Saturday, we join my in-laws for dinner at an Italian restaurant, near our home. It’s a hard place to get into on a Saturday night. They aren’t very big and with a little one it’s easier to get a large booth and let her sit on a booster between my wife and I?

The biggest problem I have with the place is that they always seem to have the loudest and rowdiest bunch of people seated at a long set of tables right up against us. It never fails. It’s hard enough to be able to carry a conversation with my daughter jabbering away but when you have the 50-60 crowd of cackling women and screaming men who all seem to laugh in a simultaneous uproar it becomes nearly impossible.

Whenever we sit down and begin to see the staff pushing the tables together we know what is coming. A group of glammed up cougar wannabes, doused in Old Lady Spice, toting their cocktails from the bar over to the table. Then comes the man and their vodka tonics or whatever and they look like they should be in contracting. Well dressed and slicked up hair, perfect mustaches that would make a 70s porn star cry. They all sit down and begin talking loudly, laughing even louder, constantly making it difficult for us to get out or our server to get in to serve our dinners.

The ears bleed, the eyes water, and the left hand firmly restrains the right one which is wielding a steak knife aimed directly at the temple. Honestly, It is so hard to sit and carry on a civil conversation just below a mild roar and not be annoying? I could understand if we were in a rowdy bar or someplace like a T.G.I.Fridays. But this is a little Italian restaurant with excellent house dressing and low lighting. I’m just trying to enjoy my steak sandwich and I have to put up with the cackling. Even the 25 year old me would be sitting there with the 20 year old wondering, “WTF?” (mandatory use internet slang quota reached for this post.)

Ultimately, we just put up with it, keep our comments under our breath. We finish our meal and we go, awaiting the next week’s offering of the men and ladies of the Aqua Velva and Net set, respectively. It really is a good house dressing. I love the turkey club and the Fra Diavola. I just don’t like all the yelling. I’m grumpy and old now. I’m no longer a tortured soul. I have a family and a mortgage. I’m not an unemployed actor, but I play one on….ok that was too easy of a joke. I’m still misunderstood but that’s because I am the only guy in a household of females. There’s my wife, my daughter, three female cats and one male, but he doesn’t count because he’s fixed. (Here’s where the reprise of the “junk-in-the-wife’s-purse” joke would have come back.) Makes me want to scream sometimes. Perhaps I will over a nice seafood marinara and a piece of bread dipped in the house dressing. You really do have to try it.

I Don't Know Is Not An Answer

Having worked in the customer service field a number of years in both the food industry and corporate office environment I can safely say that once in a while you kind of have to make shit up. I’m not talking total lie about something but you can recognize a foul up or potential issue and while it may be of little impact to fix, the perception by a customer that you’ve fouled up can be devastating.

Case in point. This weekend I spent both days helping my sister-in-law move. It was much my like my own disaster of moving from one place to the other. Limited time. Limited help. Multitude of stuff. I caught lunch on the fly from McDonald’s and ate it while driving on the turnpike from my place to hers.

Now, I already have a prepared sense of “This will get screwed up” with this particular location but what makes matters worse is the fact that it has a double drive thru. Of course I ended up embarrassing my wife during the whole process.

First off, when you get to the speaker to give your order they come on with this, “Thank you for blah blah, would you like to try a Filet O Fish value meal.” I just said, “No.” My wife looked at me like, “Prick, much?” I told her that it’s a prerecorded greeting and that I’m not responding to an actual person. They come on afterwards. Sure enough, the voice taking my order was different than the one asking me to buy a Fish sandwich. In fact, who knows if the real person I’m speaking to is even in this store?

Needless to say, we placed the order and then took turns with the other cars getting in line to pay. The first window took my money and had the right order. The second one was manned by some 15 year old kid who proceeded to hand me three bags. Now, I know we bought a lot of food but three bags full? I said, “Um, are you handing me one or all three?” He paused and then took the bags back in and slid the window shut. “Ok.” He opened back up after conferring with someone and said, “Do you want to just pull into the parking lot and we’ll bring your food out to you?” I said sure, but then felt a little impish and wanted to just joke with the kid, “What happened to my order?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know. They just stuck me in this window.” My jovial spirit lessened, I looked at him, as he retreated from my minimum throttling distance, and said, “That’s not an answer.” By now my wife was getting peeved  and told me to. “Just park it.” I said, “Come on, that wasn’t an answer. At least he could have lied to me and said the Fryalator was down or the Hamburglar stole my quarter pounder. ‘I don’t know’ is a crap answer. “

“You’re embarrassing me I don’t want them spitting in my food.” My wife said. You have to remember, this is the same woman who worked in a job where she once told a customer to shove a turkey up his ass in front of her boss. This was after he complained about her not being sympathetic towards his plight. Meanwhile, she was doing more than humanly possible to find his Thanksgiving order and eventually figured it out where someone less committed to a job would just say, “I don’t know.” And call it a day. And again, this weekend, she was getting her boots ready to kick the ass of the people her sister were renting the house off of over all these problems to which I said, “They know that your sister has to move in, this weekend, and you are spoiling for a fight that could give them the inkling to say, ‘Fine, don’t live here.’” After a few minutes the manager (aka man with the key to the register) appeared and gave us our order. We were on our way, and I bit down on the tongue of frustration and waited until we were out of the parking lot to press the matter. “Look, you’ve worked in this kind of job. Did you act like that at 15?” She said no although she did have her share of moments where her thumb might have pressed a little hard on someone’s tomato. I said, “You took pride in what you did. If I would give that response to someone at my job, I’d have my ass working at McDonald’s next to numb nuts there.”

Let me clarify something. I am not meaning that my job is all that glamorous and above someone who works at McDonald’s. I am simply saying that if I chose to handle myself in such a fashion I would be in the drive thru hole along with that kid because they were willing to hire him with that level of discipline. I don’t care if you work at Walmart or Wall Street, when you work with customers or the public you conduct yourself in a way that doesn’t make them become a former customer. Saying “I don’t know” is the same as saying, “I don’t care. I’m just here for a paycheck.” You find out or at least you give a reason that satisfies the customer until you can rectify the problem. While I understand the value of having teenagers work in a job that can teach them discipline and respect I don’t think that the management of those companies takes a hard look at how those employees are actually obtaining those habits if they are at all.

It’s hard to have a teen comprehend the value of customer service since they are sometimes working a job because their parents want them to. I used to dread my old company because of the lack of good workers they hired over the need to throw bodies at the job. I would come in at 7:00 AM and do my work and fix their mistakes because they were too busy screwing around at night, more worried about going out to party then actually doing a good job. In fact, one instance where I had worked a 14 hour shift I nearly lost it. I had come in that morning, set up a lunch and took care of meetings, worked the lunch, turned over the lunch into a wedding and then bartended and served dinner for the wedding. After dinner I was supposed to be relieved to go home but couldn’t until a particular person came out to take my bar. Now, this guy was a bit of a slack so I knew exactly where to find him. He was back in the boiler room, in the dark, blazing up and I said, “You want to come take my bar so I can go home.” I then went to my boss and said, “You know why I’m still here? Because (blank) is back in the boiler room getting stoned.” She walked back but dismissed the smell of weed for cigarette smoke. I said, “If he was smoking a cigarette, then why was he hiding in the boiler room, in the dark, instead of going out into the courtyard like everyone else?” Guess what her answer was? “I don’t know.” Now you know why it was my former job.

If anyone under the age of 20 actually reads this stuff do yourself a favor, learn some discipline and some tact. I know it’s not cool to be a company man and play by the rules. I’ve been there. I refused to follow the ambiguous rules that left me open to interpret them because I didn’t want to be considered un-cool. You make more friends with the in crowd of kids if you act all “I don’t give a shit” but what does it really get you? Have you ever seen Falling Down? Exactly. Some people don’t like “I don’t know” as an answer and they’re willing to take their frustrations out on you. Is it worth it to you? Don’t answer that.