At the Train “Convention”

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.

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!!!”

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.