Stupid People on Stupid Trains

My mom came to Pavia to see my crib last week. In spite of the uninviting weather I think she had a good time and most importantly we ate at several amazing restaurants. Friday we planned on taking the morning train to Milan, exploring the city a bit, then taking a train to Geneva where I would spend the weekend and my mother would go back to the states. When we got to the train station that morning we discovered that due to a strike ALL trains from Pavia to Milan were canceled. Busliners were carrying soggy people to Milan, but there was a 90 minute delay. This would have put us in Milan right after a train left for Geneva and three hours before the next one. Unexcited by the prospect of exploring Milan in pouring rain, we decided to cab it. In retrospect, our first clue that the ride would be pricey was the BIG Mercedes cab that we had to order from the hotel, one of the only ones who would drive the ~50km to Milan. The good news is if you have a car like that you can go 160+ kph and not notice it. 30 minutes and 80€ poorer, we were in the ticket line at Milan Central. More good news: both the outbound and inbound trains were full and the only availability was first class.

The people in our first class cabin were funny. For the first hour of the four hour trip there was a bored poseur skater kid wearing Kermit the Frog neon green shoes blasting his iPod. It didn't make sense for him to take first class, so I chalked him up to be the sort who burns all the nice polos and button downs his well-to-do family buys for him and goes shopping at the local goodwill, for enhanced "street cred". Then as he got up to leave he stretched and I realized he was wearing Versace jeans and a D&G belt, and the tail of the shit poking out from under his Anti-Establishment Slogan bearing sweatshirt read Valentino. I wanted to jump up and shake him and scream at him, "You spent $800 and all you got out of it was a blaring self-proclamation as the world's biggest douchebag!" But I just watched him leave, poor posture and all, bland American rock in his wake.

This left us in the cabin with a couple who belonged in one of those yachting magazines. If you ever go to the newsstand and pick one up, you will notice two things immediately, (a) boats are outrageously expensive, and (b) every picture containing water or sky will invariably feature one or more attractive women in the background. (never in the foreground, unless they're selling something) These magazines cater to the wealthy aging man who needs reassurance that no matter how unpleasant or physically repulsive he is, sheer wealth guarantees him the company of some pretty 20something who wears too little and talks too much. I'm exaggerating, the mister wasn't disgusting and the missus wasn't dumb, but I'd rather chew aluminum foil than listen to them argue for another three hours. Background information now. French white male, early to mid 40's, lives in Paris, worked many years for a multinational waste management company. About 10 pounds overweight. Ukranian white female, mid 20's, moved to Paris 6 months ago, long blond hair, perfect complexion and 6'1" tall. Body weight around 45kg. Most likely a model of some sort.

Let's examine how they interact with some sample conversation topics.

"How come you won't speak French to me? How am I supposed to learn if you don't help me practice?" 3 minutes of arguing, followed by 20 minutes of pouting and glaring and icy voices.

"You can't do math. We were in Italy for 6 days. If you can't figure that out, you are an idiot. Here, let me show you..." he proceeded to count, as if to a 5 year old, the days on his fingers to show her just how wrong she was. It's an honest mistake to miscount a day, especially when time zone changes are involved, but he was really laying into her. What I ought to have done is bludgeoned him over the head with a massive integral and left him at the next stop bleeding Taylor expansions from his ears. This put her in the mood to take a 45 minute nap, the accompanying silence almost making up for the awful row that preceded it.

Finally, not content to sit in stony silence for the rest of the ride, they started up again when the mister's grand views of unifying Europe collided with the missus' views on eastern European politics. My mom was having a conversation with the mister when the missus apparently couldn't take it anymore and started to interject. It seemed like she actually had interesting things to say, but her English didn't come out that fast and he just bullied her around until she shut up. That wasn't awkward either. In retaliation, she took his iPod, which he requested back no less than 5 times, and turned it up louder than the label whore who was in the cabin earlier.

In summary, if you question your ability to display rudimentary etiquette for the duration of your train ride you are advised to stay home or walk. Otherwise, someone not so nice will hide plans for a WMD in your passport so that you are seized by border control and deported to the United States.