Hillary and Chuck

Yesterday afternoon an intense weather system moved over the Northeast and made for some nasty conditions. Walking across the parking lot from the train, I came as close to having a Luke Skywalker killing his ton-ton moment as I've ever had in my life. One thing that stopped me was my semi-animal friendly disposition and another thing was my lack of ton-tons. I accepted my lack of ton-tons and trudged furiously to my car.

The locks on my car have a habit of freezing up when the temperature drops suddenly. I finally got in through the passenger side after several desperate minutes in the 100 million mile an hour winds and the snow, sleet, and hail, that was actually blowing up. After I got into the car, the windshield needed serious attention, except since I couldn't get out of the driver's side door, I decided to drive home and hope the windshield wipers would do their job. They didn't and I think this driving was the worst of my life including van and trailers in torrential downpours on steep mountain roads.

Anyway, this morning, as I got into my car to drive to the train it was the first beautiful morning in a long time and I was feeling pretty good. That was until I tried shutting the door and realized that instead of my door being frozen closed and locked, the latch had frozen open. The door literally would not stay shut without my holding it. WTF, right? Although I eventually figured out that I could keep the door jammed shut by shoving an ice scraper though the armrest, I drove to the train serenaded by the "Doo-Bee-Doop" door chime. I made the best of it by pretending it was techno.

Because of traffic and my car door, I didn't make the 8:30 train to South Station. Big deal, I'd take the 9:05. Unfortunately, the 9:05 got canceled. AT FIVE PAST TEN! The 10:02? I don't know if it ever came because I left the station at 10:35 with Hillary and Chuck, two strangers I had been chatting with at the train station. After realizing the train probably wouldn't come unil 10:45 anyway, I decided to drive and figured I might as well have company (and maybe some help splitting the cost of the trip?)

Anyway, I found out a lot about Hillary, not because she talked a lot, but because I think Chuck was hitting on her and kept asking her lots of questions. Chuck was probably mid to late thirties and he worked for a marketing company from Providence that had offices in Boston. Hillary, early twenties, was a bartender for a bar near Fenway Park and illustrated children's books. She just graduated from Mass Art and lived in Attleboro with her boyfriend. Chuck moved to Attleboro about a year and a half ago to live more in the woods. Hillary's brother plays music and he's a music teacher, but he's in law school now. He's pretty good with HTML and might help her make a website to display her art. Chuck plays music on the weekends in a Pink Floyd tribute band. Hillary didn't seem to mind Chuck hitting on her and at times she even seemed to be working him for a tip, like all good bartenders. Neither of them offered any money for gas or parking.

Everyone's got interesting stories if you take a minute to ask them questions. You find out a lot more if you let someone else hit on them for a while, though.