Words and Thoughts: Belp to Münchenbuchsee, at the Speed of Pez
Hello again, alleged readers. Due to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control, I’ve found myself on exactly three different high-speed French trains this week. Due to foreseen circumstances under my control, I’ve found myself on exactly two different high-speed French trains this week. I found myself on zero high-speed French trains due to unforeseen circumstances under my control or foreseen circumstances beyond my control.
What a relief that we are all now on the same page regarding the outcomes of all possible train presences for Ol’ Stav here when the variables are preparedness and control (control variables notwithstanding).
On the last train, a man approached me all animated like, lobbing insults at me such as “slacker and bum”, compliments such as “loud and obnoxious”, and neutral observations such as “trash animal”. I turned my JVC RC-M90 boom box all the way down (because it had been all the way up), and said, “What?”, because I couldn’t really hear everything he was saying on account of my JVC RC-M90 having been all the way up. He rabbled at me some more, making sure to reiterate the key points while I nodded along. “Yup, slacker, bum, got it; loud and obnoxious, thank you; trash animal, absolutely correct, yes”.
I just didn’t know where he was going with his sales pitch, and I was beginning not to care. As slowly as I could, I began to turn up the boom box. The song Eight Million, Six Hundred Seventy Five Thousand, Three Hundred Nine had already played halfway through. I didn’t want to rewind the tape, but I really wanted to hear the tenth time Tommy Tutone says “Jenny”… that’s the best “Jenny” in the whole song obviously.
Yelling over the song now, I said, “SIR, I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS SONG ANYMORE, AND WHILE I APPRECIATE THE INTERACITON THAT WE’VE BEEN PRIVELEDGED ENOUGH TO SHARE, I THINK YOU’RE DISTUBING THE OTHER PASSENGERS”.
Well he didn’t like that none and we got to kickin’ and bitin’ and such and then the nice gendarme came on board at the next stop and that was the end of my high-speed French train adventure.
I didn’t even want to be in France. See that unforeseen part above there. I was in Switzerland for a few days last week, because I’ve heard tell that it’s “The Ohio of Europe”. I was on a train from Belp to Münchenbuchsee (they have places just named like that over there, truly the Ohio of Europe) and found what I thought was a Pez Candy on the ground. It didn’t look like an American Pez Candy, rather it looked like a pill that said Zolpidem on it, but I just figured that was Swiss for Pez.
It was not. I woke up deep into France.
I made sure that I had not been robbed while I was passed out, which I wasn’t, because I still had all three things I had brought with me on the trip: The boom box, my passport, and Dillon from work’s passport. This was good, because I planned on selling Dillon’s passport in order to buy a plane ticket home. I rode around France for a while, and then I met the salesman, and now you’re up to speed.
Turns out though if you bite a French citizen in France hard enough, France will just straight up send you home for free.
And that useful little travel hack is obviously the moral of this whole story. Can someone fax this to Condé Nast, please?
