Europe today

I don’t travel on planes.

I travel on trains.

Once in a while, on trains,

I see people who travel on planes.

Every once in a while I’m surrounded

By people whose planes have been grounded.

I’m enthralled by their air-minded snobbery,

Their exclusive hobnobbery,

And I’ll swear to, before any notary,

The clichés of their coterie.

They feel that they have to explain

How they happen to be on a train,

For even in Drawing Room A

They seem to feel declassé.

So they sit with portentous faces

Clutching their attaché cases.

As the Scotches they rapidly drain

That they couldn’t have got on the plane,

They grumble and fume about how

They’d have been in Miami by now.

They frowningly glance at their watches,

And order more Scotches.

By the time that they’re passing through Rahway

They should be in Havana or Norway,

And they strongly imply that perhaps,

Since they’re late, the world will collapse.

Then, as station merges with station,

They complain of the noise and vibration.

These outcasts of aviation,

They complain of the noise and vibration.

Sometimes on the train I’m surrounded

By people whose planes have been grounded.

That’s the only trouble with trains;

When it fogs, when it smogs, when rains,

You get people from planes.

Copyright 1952 by Ogden Nash.
First published in The New Yorker.