I am a infeluncer and I finelunce stuff
April 3, 2026Foreward: Every year when I go to Memphis for Christmas, I take the train. I have been driving back and forth from Memphis to New Orleans and back for literally fucking half of my life. The first half is pure bridge torture getting out of New Orleans before you get to I-55 north. It’s trees, cops looking for out of state plates, pure boredom misery. I’ve made the trip enough times that each gas station has some random memory of a trip there and back.
So I take the train. It’s about the same amount of money and only a few hours longer but it’s worth it. No TSA, bring your own food, booze, internet, noise cancelling headphones, contoured sleep mask, chromebooks, it’s pure heaven for me. I’ve done 3 days in couch on Amtrak and that’s about the limit of my psyche so the 8 hours to Memphis is nothing.
You get on the train and it slowly leaves New Orleans and gets on the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. Now years ago the bridge was sketchy as fuck. It reminded me of a wooden roller coaster in Memphis called the…Zippin Pippin. They’ve done work on it but it still just doesn’t feel safe. Below is a true story that happened. It got buried under election news but is a true story.
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Michael hadn’t had a great year, lots of failures, primarily caused by himself. He started to reach a almost zen like state, forgiving himself for the mistakes and saying to himself 2025 will be his year. Sure, Elon Musk is basically our president now, which isn’t great and I hate alcoholics anonymous but the saying “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.”
The problem is Michael doesn’tt really believe in god in the traditoinal sense but a lot can be said for the rest of that quote, know the difference, etc.
Now Michael loves taking the train vs driving home to Memphis for Christmas. I-55 through Mississipi is basically trees and state troops looking for out of state plates to ruin someone’s life. The train ticket to Memphis every year is a gift to himself, 6.5 hour drive vs a 8 hour train ride is a no brainer.
He has some serious experience riding coach Amtrak. The longest adventure he conquered was a 3 day train ride to Washington D.C. which tested every part of his endurance. After the 3rd day the train starts to feel very claustrophobic and also you can buy alcohol on the train at a premium but Michael always refused out of principle.
That leads us to Michael’s kit that he has slowly built up over the years. It starts with his tactical 5.1 backpack that the chromebook, water and crackers go in the main pocket. Attached on the outside are the noise cancelling headphones that are crucial for the train. In the outer pocket he has his daily medication, sleep mask and a empty yeti with a metal straw that has a nice rubber tip, a new additional to his kit. Attached to the backpack is a small cooler with the salami and cheese with a ice pack to avoid having to buy the dreaded amtrak train hotdog.
Also attached to the 5.1 backpack is a small 5.1 bag. This bag is very special, it’s been through Michael’s journey’s for years. It was a gift from his dad and it has seen so much insanity over the years. One of the zippers broke off and was replaced with a O ring. Inside the little bag is a bag of wine, obviously removed from the box in the main pocket. In the front pocket, he has a battery pack with dozens of chargers for all of the devices. Also in the small bag is the Tmobile hotspot which works fairly well except for certain parts of the train ride when in the middle of no where.
Also he has his rolling bag with his clothes and christmas gifts for the family. He did good this year, lots of stuff to give to the family.
Michael had always been a black sheep. You can discuss nature vs nuture until the nutria come home but he never knew why he was the way he was and stopped trying to fit in with society anymore.
His plan was to go enjoy the holiday with family and immediately start applying for remote gigs and slowly detach himself from New Orleans and it’s isolated culture. He had a plan to leave but for now he just has to accept the fact that work will not be done until January.
The day before Christmas eve, he packed up the kit, put on the camo pants, a hawaiian shirt, put on the boots including the ankle knife. He put on his rings and his watch and secondary knife that goes in the right pocket and took a lyft to the Amtrak station.
He tipped his Lyft driver because he helped Michael get his bag out of the back of the Hyndaui that had minor body damage which made him slightly nervous while on the interstate. He reminded himself that cars are pretty well made now a days and it’s pretty easy to survive most car wrecks.
Michael makes small talk with the lyft driver who almost feels like a AI composite of a dude from New Orleans. We drive by the first of 2 driving ranges and he says “times picuque that ain’t dere no more”. The lyft driver brings up that the Saints are playing the Packers tonight in Wisconon and how they are going to freeze their ass off.
It’s absolutely packed and there is Polar Express event so there is even more people than usual. Christmas music grates on Michael’s nerves and reminds himself that you can’t start drinking until after you get on the train and the conductor scans his ticket.
He carries his kit up the stairs on the train and realizes he’s in the first row and obviously he’s going to have a single serving friend sitting next to him.
Walking up to the his assigned seat is a very well dressed african american fellow. Perfectly white sneakers, pants matching his jacket, sunglasses and diamond earrings. He’s from Memphis and his birthday is tomorrow. Michael hits it off immediately with him since Michael considers himself more african american than white because of his time living in Orange Mound.
Michael carefully pours wine from his bag into his yeti that has a awesome metal straw with a rubber tip. This will make it easier for him to drink to numb the depression that has haunted him his whole life.
Once the train leaves the station, his new friend gets up and goes to the observation card to eat his Subway sandwich that he brought which gives Michael his space which he loved.
Immediately puts on his JBL headphones and pops up internet and begins shit posting on Facebook. The train pulls out of New Orleans and heads towards the lake. Michael sits for a second and wonders what music is fitting for this and chooses James Brown. He’s sitting across from 2 BBW who are entertained looking at Michael as he cat vibes to the James Brown while sipping on his wine.
As the train reaches the lake bridge there is a sudden loud screeching that just screams “oh shit”. The train falls off the bridge and into the freezing cold lake waters and lands on it’s side. Everyone on the train begins screaming as the ice cold lake water begins to seep into the train cars. Panic ensures but Michael is ready, some would say he’s waited his whole life for this moment.
He controls his nerves and grabs his backpack and smaller purse. No wine left behind. He crawls over the other passengers, pushing them out of the way and pulls the emergency exit on the window as the water seeps in. A small child attempts to get out first before Michael pulls the child back into the passenger who falls into the freezing cold water so he can get out first. Not his proudest moment but whatever.
Standing on top of the train as it sinks into the lake he sees other passengers escaping and Michael sees his single serving friend climb out of the observation car.
We both wave at each other and make our way to each other since it’s ride or die at this point. Memphis homies gotta stick together. The train begins to completely disappear into the swamp and Michael notices maybe other passengers have survived and are scrambling to get out to keep from becoming trapped.
Michael and a group of passengers make it to somewhat dry land. Luckily Michael has his chromebook and wifi hotspot so he posts on reddit and Facebook requesting help. No one believes him. Several people like the post which doesn’t really help.
The survivors begin to try to figure out what to do. Michael’s shit post on facebook and reddit is just getting likes and upvotes but there is no help on the way.
That’s when it got real. Alligators normally do not attack in packs but these began slowly picking off passengers one by one. Michael, with his yeti in one hand and his main knife in his hand manage to kill one of the smaller ones but the alligators now have a task for Amtrak passengers.
The sun begins to set and Michael remembers that his bluetooth speaker is fully charged and puts on NIN – Broken as loud as it will go to try to scare away the predators. Also a snake bites one of the passengers and passes away fairly quickly. Good, more wine for Michael, he says smugly.
Michael looks at his bag of wine and does alcoholic math and figure he has enough wine for a few days but after that, he’s going to face sobriety and this is not the time to sober up.
He closes his chromebook and walks back to where the train derailed and holds his breath and dives in. Years of abusing marijuana has not made his lungs great bue he manges to swim into the train and locate his rolling bag that has the secondary wine and emerges from the freezing water. It’s kinda like ummm teenage mutantat ninja turtles water level, just imagine it like that.
Just then a alligator emerges from the water. Michael quickly pulls his ankle knife and stabs the alligator in the face. He yells “fuck yeah, don’t fuck with Memphis yo” and the other passengers cheer.
The sun begins to set. A fire is made and the few survivors gather around. Michael wouldn’t share any of his crackers, cheese and salami. He had always been a selfish asshole.
The alligators had surrounded the group but that wasn’t the only worry. The first person taken by the vampires was Markake, a beautiful BBW with wonderful eye lashes. They grabbed her and dragged her off while Michael and John and the rest of the survivors watched in horror. Michael had seen ghosts while living in New Orleans before but fucking vampires? Seriously?
Michael and the survivors huddled around the camp fire(that michael made with his lighter) watching the cold dead eyes in the dark. Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’.
Michael slowly removes his primary knife and begins sharpening a spear since now we have goddamn vampires now. Markake has disappeared into the darkness but she will be back with her newly minted coven but she will be back. Michael luckily had a huge cache of caffiene pills which he issued to the small group of passengers that didn’t drown in the train or eaten by the alligators.
One by one the passengers are slowly dragged into the swamp by the vampires. A very handsaome pale vampire attempted to drag Michael into the abyss but he was quick and was able stab the vampire with his spear. The vampires realized he wasn’t fucking around and retreated into the swamp as the sun came up.
The problem is that there was now blood in the air and the nutria now had the scent and began swarming the last dozen surviors. Michael’s tmobile hotspot and chromebook were almost out of power and he made one last post that gardened a few likes and upvotes but they were running out of wine, time and salami.
The little furry bastards dragged off another BBW in the early dawn, Michael starred in awe as they surrounded her then swarmed, tearing at her beautiful flesh until there was just bones left.
John and Michael decide one of us has to leave and start walking back to New Orleans to get the rest of the group rescued. After a few games of rock paper and scissors, it was determined that Michael was picked to make the trek back to Orleans parish and try to get help because there is nothing New Orleans is best at than helping it’s citizens.
Michael takes a large sip from his bag of wine and wipes the allligator blood off his knife and sets out. Luckily his phone was fully charged because of his battery pack being fully charged and started slowly walking towards New Orleans.
The sun began to set and it was time for our hero to start a fire to keep warm overnight. Suddenly, several orbs began floating above him. Michael heard the vampires snarling in the dark and now the goddamn vampires are eating the alligators which I guess is good for Michael but now we have something else. Finally one of the orbs lands next to Michael’s fire and the fucking Anunnak!. Michael recognizes them immediately after years of watching Ancient Aliens documentaries with their elongated skulls. Luckily Michael had been studying Sumerian on dulingo and explained the alligator, vampire and nutria situation and they nod with a look of sympathy in their almond shaped eyes.
And after calming me down with some satsuma slices and some fetal spooning, the Anunnaki revealed to me his singular purpose He said, “You are The Chosen One”. A message of hope for those who choose to hear it and a warning for those who do not”
Michael, uneasy about it realizes that it’s better to get into their UFO then walk through the swamp with the goddamn vampires hunting him.
The Anunnak say they don’t want to go into Orleans Parish because it’s dangerous so they drop me off in fucking Kenner near Veterans. Michael slowly waked down West Esplanade trying to get back to the condo and his bluetooth headphones die.
Walking in the depressing silence of Metairie, Michael remembers that he came back to send help to the survivors from the train wreck. He calls 911 and it’s sent to voicemail.