When is a train not a train?

According to one young rider, a train just isn’t a train unless someone says “all aboard!”

It was a recent weekend and I was stuck on the slow boat to Chinatown (read: express trains running local into Manhattan). A father and son walk on. The boy is about four years old and very excited to be riding New York City Transit with his father.

The conductor announced “standclearoftheclosingdoor,” the doors closed and the boy looked at his dad and said, “I though we were riding a train?” His tone was that of someone seriously betrayed.

His dad told him, “We are”

“But they didn’t say “all aboard.” They have to say “all aboard” on a train,” he said. He was most-likely reviewing every Thomas the Train episode he’s ever watched in his young mind.

The father tried to explain to his son that “all aboard” was not necessary, but his son would not be moved. “All aboard” was a requirement for the train riding experience according to the boy.

After some whining at his father’s attempts to reason with him, the dad had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t you help the conductor out by saying “all aboard” for him, since he seems to have forgotten?”

And so, at every stop—every blessed stop on this local train with many stops—the little boy said with all the enthusiasm he could muster, “All aboard!”

It was cute at the beginning, but soon became less so as the stops wore on. And so I was forced to think about why this was so important to the boy. God and the MTA know I had a particularly long time to think about this as the train inched its way toward Manhattan.

We’ve all had our expectations of something be completely blown like this boy’s expectation of what happens on a train. And we have a choice. We can deny reality with all our might and become angry, bitter and whiney in our inflexibility. Or, we can make it into something else and yell “all aboard” to all of life’s surprises and make them our own.