MyThreeDaughters

We live on the wrong side of the tracks here, so fairly often we get hung up by 100-car long coal trains.

It happens going to work, taking the girls to school, to softball games, trying to get to the grocery store. I swear – yeah, sometimes literally swear – that the mega-corporation headquartered here sends a train through the city every day near 5 p.m. to choke traffic and let everyone know who owns what.

Within the family, the girls have different attitudes about getting hosed by the mega-corp’s trains.

Last year, when she was four, Elizabeth and I were on the way to pre-school, taking our chances by going down one of the streets that doesn’t have a tunnel underpass. As usual, we were playing brinksmanship with the school’s 9 a.m. start.

“I sure hope we don’t get caught by a train,” I told Elizabeth.

“If you don’t want there to be a train, you just have to believe that there won’t be a train,” said the go-with-the-flow girls’ girl.

On that day, we believed – and there was no train.

A week or so ago, Fontaine and I were heading back from one of her softball games.

“I sure hope we don’t get caught by a train,” I said. Just one fatalistic pessimist talking to another fatalistic pessimist.

I told Fontaine, “Well, you know what Elizabeth said about trains.”

She thought for a moment. Being the first-born, the second-born sure as heck wasn’t about to have a clever saying without her having one.

“You know what I say?” Fontaine said.

No, what?

“If there’s a train, there’s a train.”

Yup.

And if you are hosed, you are hosed.

Dylan anyone?