Crazy woman on train, and weekend road trip

Ma'am, you are unashamed in your brazen stupidity.

There's a woman four rows ahead of me on my train who has loudly fussed about the delay we just had when we stopped at BWI airport. She's heading up to the Belmont Stakes, as everyone for several rows in either direction has heard, and she isn't happy about the 20 minutes the train sat south of Baltimore where passengers were told it was being inspected for our safety.

She first complained to the Amtrak employee who collects tickets. "Well, you could have gotten a good train instead of one that needed to be inspected," she smart-mouthed. He repeated a toll-free number she could call to voice her complaint. She also stopped the next Amtrak employee who passed her so she could mouth off a little more about the late train. He apologized for the inconvenience. What else can he do? She even tracked him down a few minutes later and asked if there were any other trains heading north any faster. Since he was using a regular speaking voice, unlike this woman, I couldn't hear his response. But based on her continued comments, he must not have offered her another itinerary. She stormed back to her seat.

While everybody else was taking the temporary delay in stride, she was singling herself out as the one person on board who was unable to accept it. When the train stopped at Baltimore to let people off and accept others on, she sat there. For two long minutes, she was as motionless as the train itself. But the second the train slowly started rolling along again, she stood up and called out, "Stop this train! I need to get off!"

Maybe she'd just figured out another train that would get her to her savory mint juleps faster than this delayed one. Or maybe all she wanted to do was continue making a scene -- and a fool of herself in front of a train we had all heard repeatedly was sold out.

At any rate, she was heard down the hall, saying, "I need to get off!" again, 10 seconds later, as the acceleration was picking up. No way we were stopping twice at the same station for the convenience of even all passengers, much less one who'd already gotten herself on the least-favorites list of all the employees on board. And as she returned to her seat, she was fuming and cursing and saying what she was going to do when she got the toll-free number on the line. She continued to talk for another whole minute, standing up at her seat. I was not a fan.

Ma'am, you are unashamed in your brazen stupidity.

Now she's standing up barking out new reservation orders over her phone to what sounds like it must be an automated voice. At least she's calmer now than before, but she's disrupting everybody's peace.

That's the fun I'm dealing with onboard a train that will drop me off in Philadelphia this afternoon. A college friend and his fiancée are picking me up from there before we head to another college friend's backyard barbecue in New Jersey, held in honor of his wedding we'll all be attending later this year.

Led Zeppelin has been on the brain today since I woke up early this morning. I wrote a long story about the possibility members of the group will sit in with the Foo Fighters in London this evening. I wonder if this will be misread as the truth in a "War of the Worlds" way.

Led Zeppelin will be on the brain tomorrow as I scan the Web for any mention of what actually happens at Wembley Stadium tonight. And I'll also be in Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's audience in Atlantic City 24 hours after it does. Then it's back to D.C. on Monday morning!