After supper, I head back to my room. Actually, it’s a roomette—a little room about 3 x 7 with the corridor on one side and the windows on the other. Two little bench seats face each other. There’s a tiny pullout table, but I don’t pull it out, much. The seats pull out to a recliner, and I do pull those out.
The upholstery and wall coverings are dark royal blue, which makes the room dark, and the lights are barely adequate. I lean back, with a pillow under the small of my back, reading a novel.
Walt, the sleeper man, comes by to ask me when I want my bed turned down. The two seats make into a lower bunk, and an upper bunk pulls down from the ceiling. I’m alone, so I only need the lower bunk made up. I ask him to put out some towels, so I can take a shower, and he says he will.
The roomettes share a shower downstairs. The full rooms have showers and toilets in suite. I can’t afford a full room. I’d like to, but no can do.
I don’t spend a lot of time in the roomette. It’s cozy, but close. One interesting feature: the room doors cannot be locked or even latched from the outside. And frequently, as the train speeds up and slows down, the doors slide open. It’s not unusual to come back to your room and find the door open. Don’t worry, it’s just the rocking of the rails.
The train generally runs between pretty smooth to a little shaky, but sometimes it veers into wobbly or even jerky. When it’s jerky, that interdimensional space between the cars can raise your hackles, as the car behind you lurches left while the car before you lurches right.
I decide to take a quick shower and change into my jammies. The shower room is a small cubicle, with another cubicle for undressing and dressing. Walls are drab gray vinyl. The shower head is on a wand, the water pressure is good, and the water is plenty hot.
I get back to my room in time for Walt to come by and make my bunk. I settle in with a book. The overhead light is really poor, and the reading light casts a glare. I brought a lantern, but it’s in my rolling bag downstairs. To hell with it.
I punch off the lights and close my eyes. First, I punch the call button for the attendant. I don’t want the attendant, but the call button is next to the light switch, so I punch it by mistake. I punched the call button by mistake in the toilet and the shower, too. I felt like a nuisance, but the attendant never came, so I stopped worrying about it.
Soon I notice that the car is repeatedly jerking and bucking, tossing me back and forth in the bed. This doesn’t help my insomnia. We’ve run into some bad track. And we keep running on bad track most of the night. I sleep in short dozes. Finally, about 5:30, I get up and get dressed.
RobinCravey 