I took the Amtrack up to Chicago today and drove back the 95 e300 diesel I bought from Matt a fellow member here. The tran was about 20 minutes late but otherwise the service was exemplary.
Sat down in the terminal with my backpack. Next to me was a lady with four bags.
Her: "where you going?"
Chicago.
What for?
Picking up an old Mercedes.
You a collector?
Uhhhh....more of an accumulator.
she laughs.
Then I launch into a breif explanation of how many old cars I have but left out the two studebakers for simplicity/
Then she tells me all about her nephew who collects (gasp) Sears allstate motorcycles...he has them all except for two models.
We go on for a good while about that, then I ask her where she's going. She launches into an excited description of how her husband is flying down in a couple of days to NOL and they are taking the delta queen paddle boat up to memphis, taking 5 days to visit all the sights along the way...vicksburg etc.
She tells me how the old Delta Queen had been taken out of service by the government and so they had to build a new one, then she starts ranting about how terrible it is that the government is telling us too much to do and that if all this safety hogwash was so effective how come Social Security is in trouble? We used to ride bikes without helmets and no seat belts in cars, etc.
I say that the automobile safety standards work really well and that even though we drive many times more miles today less people are killed than in the sixties (I may have stretched that a bit, not sure).
She argues more.
So I say "your solution to the social security shortfall is to kill off more young people?"
Then I must have made her feel as if she was losing so she said "I was kidding". don't you have any sense of humor?
So I stopped talking to her.
Turns out all the problems of the world would be all better if people just would simply grow a sense of humor!