“Do you want a ride from 22nd?” I asked my friend as she got up to leave at Millbrae.

She put her bag down and smiled, “Oh really? Ok!”

Then a few minutes later, the train suddenly slowed down and the lights slowly dimmed. To darkness and the emergency lights went on. The train came to a stop.

I breathed deeply. Just a moment, right. But instead, it turned into something more.

After riding caltrain for more than 4 years, I knew the deal. An accident, incident…tragedy…malfunction…whatever…can last up to…3 hours. 1 hour if lucky. But ever since committing to a contract in Palo Alto, I took the train nearly every day, hoping to never experience such a thing.

Well, time had come.

A shaky female voice came over the loudspeaker, “The train has struck a vehicle and the authorities are coming. I apologize for the inconvenience. However, this is now a crime scene so you cannot leave the train. We are working our best to get you to your final destination.”

Oh crap.

My friend repeated FML FML FML as I apologized profusely for convincing her to stay to save three dollars and get back home 10 minutes earlier. She assured me that it wasn’t my fault.

So we sat in the back row of the last car in the train as we waited…for 90 minutes until whatever was cleared. An empty vehicle. Fortunately nobody was hurt except all the time sensitive issues that the commuters possibly had. My friend worked on her stuff while I attempted on my laptop to edit an essay that I wrote for Modern Love but was so lost on its theme. Then when the lights finally came back on, I looked over the pages that I needed to review before this Thursday’s workshop. Then I fell asleep. Announcements every 15 minutes.

Then the train backtracked to San Bruno where we crossed the tracks to another Northbound train which made every single stop (fortunately only 3 stops). My friend and I shivered out into the train while she was complaining about something unrelated to trains. At the track crossing, someone got all feisty, yelling.

We got on the train on the opposite side and headed back up.

I got home at 9 pm. Two hours later than expected.