At the Train “Convention”

2009 March 25
by mockers

It has long been believed that the biggest dorks in the entire world are trekkies. If you are the type of person that has made a pastime of giving trekkies a hard time – whether it is going over to their house and putting their figurines in sexually inappropriate positions, or beating up the I.T. Manager at work – I suggest that you check out a model train enthusiast convention. These people make trekkies look like a tribe of Hugh freaking Hefners.

I'll leave that whole

Wondering how I came to be walking around a model train enthusiasts’ convention? It’s a long and expensive story that boils down to one sentence…My kid likes trains. Our family had a rare Saturday that we were all together so we decided to make the best of it and set out early. We went to Union Station and looked at a bunch of trains as well as some history-type shit. Then we went to Pizza Street and loaded up on cheap pizza and got our fill of trailer-society watching. We should have called the day a success right there before the angry sauce kicked in, but we don’t understand the concept of quitting while we’re ahead. The wife had heard about a train show down in the West Bottoms. We headed over there to see train exhibits and history. Instead, we got mugged by a bunch of carnies. We were greeted with a parking fee of $6. I explained to the guy that I wasn’t there to see the hockey game – I was there to look at trains. His response was, “eeeeehhh? Six Bucks! Six Bucks!!!”

Six Bucks!
Six Bucks!

So I handed Mr. Deliverance his six bucks and drove into the parking lot with the full knowledge that this was not going to end well. We grabbed a parking space and headed toward  the building. My family and I walked through the door, through a large concourse-looking thing and into the door to the train thing. We were immediately stopped by yet another dentally-challenged man who wanted to take our tickets. “Tickets? What do you mean tickets? Are you serious? We need tickets?!” I asked. “eeeeehhh? Take yer tickets mister?” Was his response. My wife and I shook our heads and went back out to the ticket booth. The tickets to the train enthusiasts’ convention were $8 for adults and kids got in free. I actually said to the lady, “You’ve got to be shitting me!” Since we had already paid the $6 to park and since we do not understand the concept of cutting our losses, we shelled out the $16 bucks and walked into the “show” as they called it. It was everything that I imagined it would be – a dirt mall filled with trains and people discussing the obscure scales (we’re 1/900 people – what’re you?) that they specialized in while shooting dirty looks at the Thomas the Tank Engine sellouts. Ridiculous. We even got tricked into buying a few Thomas things for the boy.  We suck. We got completely bilked out of about $40 by grown men who not only play with toy trains, but readily admit this fact to other people. I wish we had gone to a Star Trek convention.

One Response leave one →
  1. 2013 May 31
    Kat permalink

    At least we never darkened the doorway of that place again. We did make the mistake of doing Day Out With Thomas more than once. We’re slow learners.

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