• More inattentive than I dared imagine •
[2 MIN READ]
A recent organizational conference I attended was inordinately full of moments of ditziness that amounted to mostly just annoyance: managing to get into the wrong dorm room for host-college housing, continuing a run down the street and entirely forgetting to turn over to the local trail, lowering the overly cold air conditioning from the previous night and accidentally turning on the heat. Thankfully, it all amounted to very little. Until the very end.
Not wanting to drive solo from the Philly area to the Pittsby area, I was able to take the bus out and arrange a ride back with a final train ride from most-of-the-way-home. My colleague driver couldn’t remember exactly which side of the station went which, but there was signage and I figured it out. Settling on the platform with 30 minutes to spare, a young traveler joined me. I saw another traveling pair ascend to the platform on the other side and board the train going the other direction. Fellow same-side traveler looked down our side for our train. Seeing nothing in the distance, he asked, “Is this side of the track going to New York City?” Panic enveloped as I registered that the headlight of even a late train should have been visible in the distance.
I went down the steps to the street level. I walked to the next stairwell. I found there, completely out of the line of sight, the sign for the Philadelphia-bound side. Returning up to the platform I discovered that the sign for the Philadelphia direction was also gone from the opposite platform. The ceiling mounts that should have held them were devoid.
It seems that 2 out-of-towners like fellow traveler and me never registered that the sign on our side for Harrisburg was going in the wrong direction. At 6:55 p.m., it was the last train of the day.
Wife was able to drive the 2 hours to get to me and we were able to get fellow traveler to Philly’s hub train station to get across NJ to JFK.
Read the rest of the story: “I’m Going to Pray for You”
Fortunately, the trip to Philly didn’t end at Philadelphia International Airport, something Wife remedied through pointed conversation. I had promptly forgotten that from the start he said he was going to New York.
FINE PRINT *Thanks to Irving Berlin. ¶Text: Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-posted: (1) Facebook 2025’07’24’R and (2) CCO @ iCandybyWangC
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