Information, Please

On Sunday, Tim was scheduled to go to New York on the 6:00 Acela Express Train. Around 2:00, on our way home from running our errands, he decided to call Amtrak and see if he could catch an earlier train.

Using his car's speaker phone, he called information and asked for Amtrak's number.

"Uh, is that a business?" the operator asked after a rather long pause.

Rolling his eyes while Rose and I grinned, Tim expanded on his initial request. "Yes. The Amtrak train station in DC."

"Oh. Trains. Okay," the guy somehow managed to sound both relieved and confused at the same time. He then named several businesses with the word train in the title.

"No, not trains. Amtrak," Tim rolled his eyes and shook his head as Rose and I stifled our giggles.

"Amtrak train," the guy repeated, back to sounding plain old confused. "Do you have an address for that?"

Of course, and we have the number too. Hellooooo. Aren't you supposed to be information?

Gritting his teeth as Rose and I clapped our hands over our mouths to check our guffaws of laughter, Tim replied, "It's at Union Station."

"Union Station?" the guy parroted back, like he was trying to learn a difficult technical term.

"Amtrak train at Union Station in DC." Tim had apparently decided that repeating all the information in one breath at top volume while waving his arms about like a windmill (thankfully, we were stopped at a light at the time) was the key to better understanding here.

"I have an Amtrak office on Mass Ave.," the guy tentatively offered after another painstaking pause.

"Fine," Tim roared with frustration while Rose and I roared with laughter.

A minute later, we were connected to a voice activated system. "If you want to check on train times, say "schedule"," it crooned smoothly.

"Schedule," Tim dutifully repeated, the brilliant red color slowly retreating from his face. The computer seemed a lot smarter than the guy he had just dealt with.

"What is your starting point?" Emerac (the computer from the Hepburn/Tracy movie Desk Set) asked.

"Union Station."

"I heard Durham," Emmy replied.

Uh oh. This was not good. The red tide began to rise again.

"Union Station," the volume rose as well.

Fourteen questions later, with no sign of any actual information forthcoming, Tim tried to cut to the chase. Foolish man.

"Acela Express train," he threw at Emmy. Rose and I exchanged head shakes as we wiped tears from our eyes.

"Please repeat," she sounded as confused as the information guy.

"Acela Express train." It was kind of sweet and a little pathetic the way he was clinging to the hope of actually getting the information he wanted.

Pause.

"Did you say you want to talk to an agent?" Like the information guy, Emmy too was now trying to make Tim somebody else's problem.

And once again, Tim fell for it. "Yes!" he choked out, finally seeing the humor here and joining in our uncontrollable laughter as the sounds of Muzak filled the car.

Next time, we decided, it would probably be easier to just keep the reservation, even if it wasn't nearly so entertaining.