Greetings from beautiful downtown Washington, DC, where it’s nearly 1 AM and I’m writing from the very scenic Gate C of Union Station. As in the “Stranded at Gate C” Gate C of Union Station.

I suppose I’m not really stranded; after all, I could have boarded my train when it departed 90 minutes late, and arrived in Philadelphia too late to make my connecting train to Atlantic City. So I had my choice of which train station to be stranded in, which I suppose doesn’t completely meet the definition of stranded. I stayed in DC because although the Starbucks is closed, the wifi is live, and there’s a power outlet here. Besides, for some reason DC seems to have a better class of homeless people scattered about than 30th Street.

So I’m passing the time waiting to get to Atlantic City by playing poker online. I would probably think that’s ironic if I gave it much thought.

I wish I could say I’m surprised to be here, but really I’m not. After two decades of being an adult non-driver, and happily carting myself up and down the East Coast via planes, trains, and (other people’s) automobiles, it’s gotten to the point where pretty much every traveling experience has been a negative one. And I’m a guy who’s been stranded by transportation companies on three continents; it really takes a consistent effort to annoy the hell out of me.

Amtrak seems to pride itself on raising surliness and inconvenience to an art form, along with their ticket prices. You can just tell they’re itching to say, “Screw you. If you don’t like it, you can take the bus.”

Which would be tempting, since the train routinely costs three times what the buses charge. But the buses — yeesh. After the gate agents get finished treating you like a suspected terrorist criminal psychotic, you board your bus and spend the trip dealing with the federally mandated quota of terrorist criminal psychotics, whose presence makes you too frightened to sleep, or makes it too loud to sleep without spackling your eardrums.

The only consistent positive experience I’ve had recently is with the “Chinatown” buses, which cart you from one Chinatown to the other for truly dirt cheap rates, and who generally maintain an air of professionalism in the process that exceeds Greyhound’s. But it sort of feels like “hard seat” tickets — bring your food and your nicotine patch with you when you board, because that bus ain’t gonna stop until it gets where it’s going.

I think I’ve had enough, sitting here at 1 AM in downtown DC. I think it’s time to finally do my bit to promote global warming, prop up the economies of countries that donate money to radical Islamists who hate me, tell Amtrak to ram it up their caboose, and send the Greyhound to the glue factory. I’m just too tired of you.

So — does anyone know of a Driver’s Ed class that isn’t filled with teenagers and alcoholics?