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2004-10-16 - 12:02 p.m. We rode on the ferry again tonight. If I had to guess, I'd say it was my 347th time. At $3.00 a trip that is $1041.00! Well, I don't think it has always been $3.00 toll, so maybe subtract a few cents here and there. On this particular trip, we didn't have to wait too long because miraculously the ferry was on its way over to our side. By the way� when I say "ferry", I hope you're not thinking of some big ocean liner thing that fits 400 cars. That would be an exceedingly inaccurate visualization. These little tuggers fit only a few cars at a time. There are 3 of them. One fits 6 cars, one fits 10, the other fits 18. Usually they have one running at a time, which is usually the biggin'. When I was a kid, we used to ride over on the little gig. Funny you should ask, I do in fact have a picture:  I think this was my 23rd trip across. It appears that we're heading over to Kentucky by the looks of the background. That's my cousin Amy and me leaning out the back window of the 1972 Ford avocado green Country Squire station wagon. We were either on our way to the airport or to Aunt Rosie's. For some reason it looks like my Mom is navigating this ship (I'm talking about the station wagon, not the ferry) and my Aunt Margie (the captain of this ship) is in the back seat with the unbelted kids. * Note the empty forward facing car seat positioned in the FRONT seat. Do not try this at home. We were trained stunt professionals. But anyway... back out of the time warp... this evening we got right on the ferry without having to wait but 2 minutes. When we boarded we were busy looking at the beautiful fall colors of the surrounding hills when Grumpy McGillicutty came to the driver's side window to collect the toll. William pressed the window's "down button" (I guess you can't say 'rolled down the window' anymore when everything is electric?) and in an attempt to lighten the unbearable solemnity of the situation said, "Woah! I forgot I had to pay ya!" Grumpy McGillicutty didn't do so much as crack a smile. He just stared blankly at William's hands fumbling in his wallet for three singles. At least give a courtesy laugh or something� GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZ... Either he's just permanently MEAN or he has it in for me for some reason. I know it was him that was "driving" (captaining?) the day that they pulled away after I was practically ON the thing. Really... I could have pulled a Dukes of Hazard maneuver and been on it. However, I didn't have an inclined ramp or a cool horn to blare while I was in midair or the ability to do it in slow motion. Therefore it most likely wouldn't have resulted in the desired outcome. I probably would have nose dived into the murky water at 70 mph and then had to have waded out from the driver's side window all red faced and pissed off yelling at onlookers, "WHAT!!!!!!????????" and then kicked my sinking car before storming off to go call my husband up at UDF's pay phone to come pick me up because our car is at the bottom of the Ohio River. So we got to the other side and gave the compulsory wave of thanks to the other grumpy guy who unhooks the rubber cables as we disembarked. He responded with an expression of absolute indifference. We were really striking out! Not to let it rain on our parade, we continued up the little hill only to be confronted with a couple of flashing red lights, dinging bells and a blasting train horn. As if to make up for having actually caught the ferry without waiting, along comes a train! "How'd I know..." Rumble, rumble, rumble - ding, ding, ding. we sat there watching as the graffitied train cars sped past the front of our car at about 40 mph... 30 mph... 20 mph... 10 mph... 5 mph... and then to a stop, blocking the road. "No, it did not just stop," I uttered aloud hoping that my husband would tell me I must be seeing things. "Yes, it did," he instead replied, matter of factly. Then to add insult to injury the damn thing started BACKING UP!!!!!!! "Might as well turn the car off," I suggested. Did the engineer leave the iron on back home and suddenly remember in the course of a busy intersection? Was he backing up to pick up a hitch hiker? NO SENSE!! The engine, with the engineer in it finally passes back by in reverse (arm over the big bench seat looking over his shoulder through the back window). The lights stopped blinking and we edged our way up to cross the tracks when the lights started blinking and the train horn was blasting again!! William threw his arms up at the engineer who responded with a delightful little wave and a smile. Life's little pleasures, eh, buddy? Thank God it wasn't a long train or I would have hopped on to one of those cars, made my way up to the Little Engine that Could... Really Annoy and personally demanded, "What in the hell??" After that whole "low commotion" (badoom * crash) we finally made it to our destination. I know... I know... Things could be so much worse, and fortunately they weren't. I'm just sayin.
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