Hello? Hello? Anybody In There?

Two train-related incidents popped up in the news the other day and caught my attention. Both are the kind that make you wonder about our fellow humans.

Two years ago in Boston, a 25-year-old doofus by the name of Brian Hopkins was boozing it up with some of his pals. At the end of a very lo-o-o-ong evening, he decides he wants to go home ... to New York City ... by train ... right now. Which train, Brian? Oh, I dunno … any train. That one parked right over there will do.

Unable to break into one of the coaches, this genius climbs up on top of the locomotive and … ZAP! … finds out what 27,500 volts feels like. Two years later, after 3rd degree burns and losing a leg and a hand, Brian is suing Amtrak because they didn’t have enough safeguards to prevent someone from … Oh, never mind. Brian, by the way, is an architect.

Last Friday, in Bakersfield, California, the driver of a semi-trailer truck loaded with cheese stopped his rig at a stop sign while he tried to decide which way to turn on the cross street. But – uh-oh! – the rear half of his trailer was sitting on railroad tracks. And of course an Amtrak train was coming at 70 miles-per-hour. Result? Cheese-whiz. And six people slightly injured.

Beware. They're out there. They're among us. And they look normal!