Putting my germ OCD on hold

Front Runner is free for a few days. So for our FHE activity, we rode UTA's newest addition. It's a double decker train that runs from SLC to Ogden with five or six stops along the way. Of course, everyone else in the Western Hemisphere thought it would be a fun activity and piled in with us.

Although the train is fast and very smooth, it was packed with humanity. Like rides at Lagoon, there was no tellin' why the handholds were so sticky. We were breathing other people's breath, touching other people's germs, invading each other's personal space. I don't even know these people! Where's my Purell? Clorox wipes? I'm having a petite maul! I couldn't wait to get home and detox.

To help me through the ordeal, I saw that our train was travelling as fast as an appliance repair van on the freeway running parallel to the tracks. The phone number for the van was clearly visible from my "standing room only" perch. I whipped out my cell and called the number. I watched as the van driver lifted his phone to see who was calling. When he answered and announced his name, I asked him if he was driving an appliance repair van. He said he was.

I began thinking (only thinking) about all the twisted fun I could have at his expense ("Well I'm in the little white Honda to your left and you just cut me off. Don't be such a jerk driver!" He looks to the left to see an old woman driving a little white Honda and who isn't on a cell phone and starts to wonder who he's really talking to since it clearly isn't her. "Don't look at me when I'm talking to you! I'm Madam Stella, the geriatric ventriloquist and that's why you don't see my lips moving! "It takes all my elderly resources just to keep this stupid car heading straight down the road, otherwise I'd be giving you the grandma eye right now!") He looks around to see who else might be able to observe him, totally unaware of me in the train, using him to pass the time while I cope with my germ aversion.

All of that dialogue passes through my shriveled little brain in a fraction of a second. Then I tell him I'm a passenger in the Front Runner train to his left and I'm wondering how fast we're going since I have no speedometer. He remarks that this is totally unexpected, to make a connection like this, and starts cracking up. Somehow this is really funny. (huh??? - not as funny as it could have been, appliance boy!) He eventually tells me we're pushing 78-79 mph. I thank him and hang up. Hmm, impressive. It feels more like 30 mph. We're about to reach the Farmington stop. This is where we'll catch the train going back to Salt Lake. And it was just pulling in - perfect timing!

But it's even more packed than the last one. I can see this isn't going to get any better unless we wait for several hours while the horde dies down. We can't wait so on we go, even closer to society than before. Families with little children, wives wrangling kids and silently cursing husbands who all thought this was a great idea. Husbands looking in wide-eyed wonder at this marvel of transportation engineering. They are unaware of the explosive wrath coiled to shatter the peace of their little world. "Isn't this a great idea? Whose having fun?" they ask their family.

...crickets chirping.

No one is having fun. Not mom, not kids, no one. Babies cry, diapers stink, everything stinks. Stale air, motion sickness, nausea, the perfect setting for a pukefest. I can see their wives smolder. Damage control will be huge!

I'm laughing inside because these men are so out of touch. But wait, wasn't this my thinking as well just hours ago? However, my circumstances are different. My own kids are coping well. They seem to be tolerating...maybe even enjoying their surroundings. And fortunately, my own sweetie felt it would be best to stay home and try to keep her sore throat from turning into a bigger one. She was spared the agony. We finally arrive in Salt Lake and gush onto the platform. It's over. There's Germ-X in the car, and at least we didn't have to pay!

I'm okay.