adventures in train travel

Dad had an adventure on the train yesterday, and got to be a Hero as well as Rescued By Heroes.

There was a drunk of about thirty years of age on board, and he sat next to a young woman who, it later proved, was a freshman in college. He was bothering her, so Dad got up and asked the girl if she’d like to talk to him. And she moved next to him, across the aisle.

And then the drunk smacked Dad on the top of the head.

Dad jumped up and the drunk staggered up, and another guy, a youngish one, got between them and talked the guy down, and apparently sat down by him and kept him from misbehaving, more or less, for fifteen minutes or so. Then the drunk finished his liquor bottle and threw it in the vicinity of Dad and the girl, though he was too drunk to hit anyone.

He got up and staggered down the aisle, and slapped another older man on the head. So the younger guy got up again, and another younger guy, who Dad says wasn’t too big but was very well set up, got on the other side of the drunk, so he was between them. Well Set Up Guy put the drunk in an armlock and the two of them forced him to sit down, and they wouldn’t let him up.

WSUG asked the drunk where he was going and he said to Mullingar, so he said all right, and they kept him in his seat, and the drunk said, “You’re breakin’ my arm.”

WSUG said, “No, I’m not, but I will if you like.” (which is wonderful if you imagine it in a good broad Irish accent)

So when they got to Mullingar, WSUG strong-armed him off the train, where they were met by security, who someone had apparently called ahead for, because there were four railroad guys there, and they surrounded the drunk. He tried to go to the other end of the carriage where the doors were open, but the woman running the snack cart blocked the door with the cart so he couldn’t get on. The railroad guys grabbed him and he took a swing at one of them.

One of them punched him. He fell down, but not out, and then two gardai came. Dad says they were the two biggest gardai he’s ever seen. :) (They got to see all this because they were waiting for the train coming the other direction to pass, so they were waiting at the station.) So the gardai took the drunk away, and several people told Dad what a Hero he was for getting the girl away from the drunk. Oh, and Dad asked the Well Set Up Guy where he’d gotten his training, and WSUG said, “I used to be a bouncer.”

So! That was Dad’s most recent adventure. o.o

(Ted, upon hearing all of this, said, “Tom gets to have all the fun,” and Dad said he thought about what Ted would’ve done and figures Ted would’ve used just enough force to make the guy wish he’d never lived. :))