Thanks for the Quality Family Time, Amtrak!

Here I am, on the train to Newport News, Virginia, with my family, going to visit my sister-in-law and her family. We could've (should've?) flown, but decided to save some money and give our kids a train experience by taking Amtrak.

 Unfortunately, I happen to despise Amtrak. I used to take the train from Boston to Philadelphia all the time back in college (20 years ago), and the damned train was almost always late. Then there was the time a woman committed suicide by jumping on the tracks; that was somewhere in Connecticut, and by the time I got into South Station it was almost 2 a.m.

My Amtrak track record (ha, pun intended!) got so bad that I finally switched to the Peter Pan/Greyhound bus. But I figured it's been 20 years, give 'em another chance, right? Yeah, not so much.

A two-hour delay later (on top of the eight-plus hour trip ahead of us) did nothing to change my opinion of Amtrak as something so broken it might never get fixed. But when we finally got on the train, it wasn't crowded. the seats were roomy and comfortable, the bathrooms didn't stink too badly, and the cafe car had plenty of wine. Greyhound doesn't sell wine.

 And then somewhere just south of D.C., I looked out the window--the afternoon sun was sparkling so prettily off of some Northern Virginia river that a lovely feeling of peace and contentment came over me. I had my family with me, we were on an adventure, the scenery outside my window was beautiful.

What more did I want? Did it really matter that we were two hours delayed? Of course not.

The More Things Change, the More Some A#*holes Stay the Same

Early this past Saturday morning I boarded a Metro-North train to Manhattan, where my old college roommate picked me up, and off we drove to Philadelphia. We were both a bit anxious about leaving our kids in the hands of our (extremely capable) husbands, but excited to reconnect with old friends, see the UPenn campus we loved, and not be "Mommy" for 30 or so hours. It was our 20th College Reunion.

I was a little apprehensive about what the whole scene would be like. During my college years there had been a group of girls who were all popular, classy, prep-school-educated, pretty, and rich (well, richer than me, at least). I was good friends with a couple of these girls, but as a group they were exclusive. Back then, they made me nervous. Twenty years later, however, the exclusionary tactics were basically gone, and I had little reason to feel apprehensive. Overall, I had some nice conversations with some smart, witty women. Turns out two decades can really change a person.

Or not. Late Saturday night, a group of us were walking from the Class of 1991 gala to a brewpub for the after-party. I knew where the place was so I was out in front, leading the way. At some point, I was aware of a guy walking next to me. I didn't remember his name, but his face was certainly familiar--we weren't friends in college but travelled in the same social circles. We chatted a little as we walked. Something about him started nagging at my brain but I couldn't put my finger on it.

As we entered the super-packed brewpub, he did the whole hand-on-your-lower-back-to-help-navigate-you-through-the-crowd thing and asked me, with a creepy glint in his eyes, what I wanted to drink. That's when I realized he was hitting on me. I admit I was flattered (I don't get hit on much these days), but also a bit uncomfortable; I'm a happily married woman, after all.

I looked around, and that's when I realized we'd become separated from the rest of our group. I started getting nervous. Then the guy ran into someone he recognized, and over the din of the crowd, I heard him introduce himself. "Hi, I'm Tom," he said.

WHAM-O! went my brain, as the pieces fell together. I suddenly realized that this guy, Tom*, was the worst, grossest, most pathetic scammer back in college. He'd hit on any girl with a pulse. Oh. My. God. I was being macked on by that dude! I started panicking. I grabbed my phone and frantically started texting my friends trying to find where they were in the huge, mobbed bar.

"I wonder where everyone else is?" I said to Tom, my heart pounding. "I want to go find them." I took off fighting my way through the crowd, putting as much distance between me and Tom as possible. I found our group in a private back room, ran over to my friends, and collapsed on the banquette, laughing: "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, protect me! I just got scammed on by The Scammer!"

A little while later, this other guy came up to me and my friends as we were reminiscing about old times. He leaned in close--way too close--and said something basically unintelligible, he was so drunk. But his intentions were crystal clear.

Now this guy I remembered. Cameron Cordi was a capital D.I.C.K. back in college. Let's put it this way: If someone had told me he was a date rapist, I'd believe them, no questions asked. I think he was an athlete--lacrosse, maybe?--and he'd always walked around campus with the most privileged air about him. He was cocky and smug and good-looking: a lethal combination. He's definitely less good-looking these days, but just as cocky and smug. And, according to his Facebook page, married with a baby.

As closing time neared, Tom the Scammer slithered over again, trying to chat me up. I answered his question curtly and turned back to my friends. Then Cam Cordi sauntered up, practically falling on me, and this time, I couldn't understand even a single word (though his face was inches from mine). He was totally plastered.

Later on, as I was lying in my hotel room bed, running through the night's events in my head, I got a weird sense of deja vu. It dawned on me that both these men had hit on me back in college (though they were boys back then). It's one thing for an 18- or 19-year-old boy to act so badly, but a 41-year-old man? That's just disgusting and pathetic and offensive. Twenty years of misogynistic, piggish behavior--their moms must be so proud!

Hopefully five years from now, when I'm back on campus for our 25th reunion, I'll remember what happened and steer clear of these guys. Because if they haven't changed in twenty years, another five isn't going to make a difference. They were jerks then, are jerks now, and probably will still be jerks when they're 80.

* All names have been changed to protect the guilty.