The City of New Orleans: Deborah in a Tizzy

Day One.

On the train they call The City of New Orleans, one of the Amtrak employees threatened to call the Amtrak police on us within five minutes. Deborah. That's her name. Obviously, Miss Deborah was having a real honk of a day (Is that a phrase? That should be a phrase), and she wanted to take it out on the five girls who smuggled liquor onto the train. She didn't know we smuggled liquor, though, and she didn't know that a member of our party was carrying pot, and she didn't know that we were going to be harassing all of the Amtrak employees about the frequency of train stops where some of us could take smoke breaks, or that we were going to hang out in the lounge car being loud for the duration of the twenty hour trip.

But Deborah was upset with us because we settled into some seats that were "Reserved for parties of three two or more" according to the piece of flimsy chicken-scratched paper tacked up above the chairs, and Muffy whipped out a marker to made necessary adjustments, so the sign read, "Reserved for parties of three two or more Us."

So Deborah got her inner-workings all bunchy and flipped out on us for destroying Amtrak property.

Then, just to be more obnoxious, the second our train starting chugging out of Union Station on Saturday night, Muffy cranked up her Ipod speakers and we all sang along to Willie Nelson, because I mean, come on, when you're on the train they call The City of New Orleans, it's like a rule or something.

Muffy got it into her head that if you shook up a little cup of half-and-half long enough, eventually you'd get butter. Silly Muffy. All you're gonna get is gross warm milk. But Muffy wanted butter, and Bobbay and I sat in the lounge car, taking it upon ourselves to see the butter process through after she passed out. We'd finished all of the alcohol, so really, what was the point of her staying up anyway? Other than making butter?

So I'm just hanging out, shaking the cream, churning the butter, and I turn to Bobbay. "Seriously. Muffy's all, 'I want butter.' And then she makes us do all the work."

"She's lazy," Bobbay shrugs.

"I know. What kind of buttermaker is she?"

"She's...a half-assed buttermaker."

I slam the creamer down on the table. "She is a half-assed buttermaker."

And then, just to prove the exchange existed, Bobbay and I recorded ourselves overacting that dialogue about forty times over the next three hours before heading back to our seats, attempting sleep.

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On another note, I would like to apologize to anyone I drunkenly emailed any time over this past week.

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