Munich to Vienna

Ah, the night train! I don’t fall asleep because the clickety-clack and the rhythmic burst of light through the gap in the curtains (that will not come together) are more restful to my brain, like a hypnotic spell being cast over me. The hard shelf (the Germans call it a bed) that I lie upon, is two feet away from my wife, Haley’s, shelf. I can’t hug her or cuddle with her or else I fall through the chasm between us. I can’t sing her a song to help her sleep (I can hear the sniffle that portends the tears) because there are two other passengers riding with us in the same cabin.
As the mesmerizing light flashes become farther and farther apart, and the light clickety-clack becomes a heavy clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, I realize that the next stop is where Haley and I need to disembark. She has cried herself to sleep by now and the other passengers are both snoring. It must be like 3AM. I peek out the window. No hint of sunlight approaching.
I shake Haley and tell her in a whisper to get her things ready to get out. I can already feel the chill air that is waiting to greet us when we step onto the platform. Haley opens the cabin door and light from the train’s hallway spills in and I suddenly realize that there are more items in the cabin than I originally thought. Besides our luggage we need to take the tall lamp standing in the corner, the clothes hanging near my shelf, the small T.V. and two nightstands (why the heck did we bring nightstands with us to Europe?) at the edge of Haley’s shelf, random boxes with even more random things within them, the desk under the window (the gap between the beds is suddenly six feet wide), and the computer (monitor, tower, keyboard, mouse and mousepad, and printer), oh, and I almost forgot the desk chair. I don’t question how all the stuff got in our cabin, rather how I’m going to get it all out before the train departs again.
I grab the lamp and some of the clothes and move them out into the hallway. Stepping into the light for the first time, I am quickly aware that I am wearing nothing but my skivvies. Jumping back into the room, I contemplate waking our fellow cabin mates for help but then I remember how they reeked of Oktoberfest when they first walked into the cabin. They could be out for days. I wonder if they’ll pass their stop. I begin pushing small boxes out into the hallway and feel the wave of futility wash over me as the train comes to a complete stop.
Grabbing what I can and still in my underwear, I head for the doors intent on getting what I can out. The desk might have to stay, maybe the nightstands and some of the bigger boxes, too. The thought occurs to me that I haven’t seen Haley running around frantically like I have, so I check the cabin. There she is! In bed!
She sits up and asks, “Gabe, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing? What are you doing? I’m trying to get us off this train with all of our stuff!” I answer in a harsh whisper.
“Gabie, we’re not on a train, honey,” she points out in a groggy voice. “Why is the lamp in the hall and why are all my clothes from my closet laying in a pile on the floor?” Haley wonders out loud.
After close scrutiny of the room we are in, I decide we are, in fact, not on a train, rather in our apartment bedroom that does not travel from Munich to Vienna at night.
I look at the nightstand clock. It’s 3AM.