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TIME Editor-At-Large Is Freaking Out Because An Amtrak Attendant Made Fun Of Him On The Acela

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Betsy Rothstein Gossip blogger
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When you’re riding a fancy, pricy train from New York to Washington, D.C., and you’re a journalist working as a big editor at TIME magazine, you want people to treat you with the respect you deserve. So when an Amtrak attendant makes fun of you for ordering a hot dog as you’re approaching the nation’s capital, raise the bridge and send the worker to the alligators.

If only the proles would just get in line and treat our intelligentsia with the respect they deserve.

“I order a hot dog on the Acela,” tweeted Anand Giridharadas, TIME‘s editor-at-large, an MSNBC analyst and “Morning Joe” regular, on Friday afternoon “The attendant laughs at me. Mean-laughs. I ask why. ‘Because we’re going to be in DC in a few minutes, and you want a hot dog.’ ?????? I feel like I’m in a play whose tickets I couldn’t afford. We are not yet in Baltimore. Half an hour to go.”

The attendant mean laughed at him?

Is he five years old?

A one-way ticket to D.C. on the Acela express can cost anywhere from $173 to over $400 if you opt for first class.

But this guy is not done complaining about hot dogs.

Incidentally, this isn’t the first time he has gotten all cranky about something stupid. (RELATED: Journo Acts Like A Baby About His Hair)

He also once gave MSNBC host Joe Scarborough‘s hairdo quite a challenge when he went on the show with bigger hair. (RELATED: Is This Dude Mocking Joe Scarborough’s Hair?)

But let’s get back to those hot dogs and that journalist on an expensive train ride. Don’t you know who he is??!!

Anand wrote, “I’m trying to understand the contradiction in his mind between imminent arrival in a city and wanting a hot dog. For me, these are almost inextricable.”

Right, because this is an exercise in intellectual thought.

When asked if he ever got the hot dog, he replied, “No, he really didn’t seem to want to serve the hot dog. I didn’t push too far. I walked away from the hot dog. Which was hard, it being a hot dog.”

The journalist had the courage to walk away from hot dog.

But not without whining about it.

“It’s been nearly half an hour,” he complained. “We are not yet in DC. And I am acutely aware that I could have eaten somewhere between seven and 70 dogs since my request for a dog was scolded.”

That’s quite an undertaking: consuming 70 hot dogs in 30 minutes.

I’d like to see that. If Mr. Giridharadas would like to prove his hot dog eating prowess, I’m sure I could persuade The Daily Caller‘s video team to accommodate him.