Me and Railroad Tracks *shudder*

I was reading Warcrygirl's Cure for Boredom this morning and it reminded me of a story to tell which hopefully is more interesting than my ranting about the lame-ass crowd at the symphony last night.

She ranted about this story and who, except an extremely stupid person, wouldn't rant about that. Especially if it's goes any further in the court system. At any rate, it reminded me of this time I took a walk with my Mom.

I think I was living in San Francisco at the time, but was home to visit and go to Champ Car races, of course. One evening after Mom got home from work we decided to walk up to Guernsey's for ice cream. I know how to get to Guernsey's, but I was following Mom as I had never walked there before. We walked around Crystal Lake Drive, turned right on Silver Springs and headed up to Eight Mile. When we reached Eight Mile we crossed the street (at the light) and walked along until we reached the part where it gets all discombobulated because of Novi Road. I would have walked all the way down 8 Mile to Novi Road and then doubled back along Novi Road, but Mom headed down into this ravine which was mostly weeds and a little river/stream/whatever. At this point Mom crossed a railroad trestle, or at least I thought she was simply crossing the railroad trestle. But no, she doesn't immediately step off, she walks along the fucking tracks. I'm completely freaking out as I only have one real unnatural fear and it's of railroad tracks, or more specifically, getting hit by the huge ass fucking locomotives that speed along them. This was a few years ago, so I don't really know how far we walked (probably not more than 50 feet) before I completely lost my mind and said, "Mom, why the FUCK are we walking on the railroad trestle?" Or something extremely similar. I'm pretty sure the word FUCK was used, as I was highly stressed by this time. Mom, in true Mom ditz/airhead fashion, said, "What?" in her normal oblivious tone. I don't remember my reply but it was enough to get her to figure out that it would be best if we stopped walking on the railroad tracks and we walked the rest of the way in the waist-high weeds. Even now, sitting here writing about it has made my heart rate jump.

Now this isn't one of the many railroad tracks across this country that aren't used anymore. Although you wouldn't know it by the number of incredibly stupid people who SIT on the railroad tracks after they get their ice cream. I believe one goes through around 6:00 p.m. At any rate, Mom was kind enough not to put my poor heart through the railroad scene again and we crossed the RR tracks* (where people were sitting) and walked back home through the big, fancy home neighborhood.

I think my fear comes from hearing all sorts of news stories where people would lose a fight with a train, either because their car got stalled on the tracks (reason I ALWAYS fly across them) or they were walking along them (this one makes me crazy, as it makes NO sense to me) or the story from here in Michigan a number of years ago of these teenaged kids wanted to get from their town to another town and therefore hitched a ride on a train and were riding on top of the cars and when the train when through a tunnel they got decapitated. Still freaks me out thinking about it.

So here's hoping the judge pitches the lawsuit in the above story in the trashcan and charges her court fees for wasting his time.

*For a long time I had trouble just walking across railroad tracks, but I'm doing much better these days. I don't even run across them. I can take them at a nice, leisurely stroll.