July 2, 2013
Yesterday I went on a business trip. It’s been a long while since I have been at an airport for more than a pick up or drop off, that is. I am usually the one at home, not the traveler. Trips for me are typically running errands, carting kids from here to there and back, caravanning to the sports complexes, or the occasional family road trip vacation. “Sorry folks, park is closed. Moose out front should have told ya.”
This trip was a little exciting since I would be around adults, speaking adult speak, doing adult things. OK that sounds… awkward. There was NO hanky panky had. How about meeting with potential clients – something that did not consist of chauffeuring children somewhere or picking up dinner at a drive-through window. I doubted I would need to reprimand or shout or repeat myself out of frustration or sigh heavily. Anyway this trip was all business and a LOT of fun. I met with the potential client, presented my “schpeel” (technical term) and overall believe I made quite a good impression. Fingers crossed for official good news in the next few weeks.
Being in an airport for more than 4 hours or so (OK 5 with mechanical difficulties) brought back some memories of observation that I had forgotten about. I remembered that people watching was a lot of fun. Wondering where they were going or where they have been. My husband and I used to have fun early in our dating years, making up stories about people we saw out and about at restaurants or malls or airports or whatever. We would whisper our guesses to each other about who they were or what was going on between them. It made us laugh. Yesterday at the airport, I was reminded about this and the fact that people watching is fun.
What is more fun is listening to other people’s private conversations that they have made public in a crowded airport! Like the guy complaining about his soon-to-be ex-wife and how he’s gonna sue her. I mean after all, he’s spent all his money paying for his son’s baseball and soccer fees and she hasn’t paid a single dime – “I’m the one throwing away my hard-earned income.” He was very put out by the whole thing – like his investment in his child was a burden and a waste. I wonder how his son would feel if he had overheard his father’s conversation. This made me sad.
Or the women talking about what I can only describe as gold-digging. No joke! An open and frank discussion about taking a guy for all he had. “You are beautiful and he knows he’s beneath you. He will pay you whatever you ask, just tell him. He will give it and then you can go. He’s old but not old enough to die yet so you should just take what you can now and get out.” Wait, what? Did I just hear that?
I think the hubby’s and my stories might have been more entertaining and a little less scary/real.
Observations at an airport:
Ladies, short shorts showing the bottom of your buns and high heels, still not a good look unless you are working a street corner. And it is very hard to race to make a connection when wearing any heel over 2”. Also v-neck doesn’t mean the neck-line should plunge to our waists. I really do not need to see your double d’s or that cell phone sticking out of them. By the way, “Marcus” is calling.
Bright color jeans or parachute pants for men are also not a good look – please leave those back in the 80’s where they belong, thank you.
Does anyone who carries a decked-out hiking backpack actually hike? If so, there are a TON of hikers in this world.
I believe people with no-show tattoos or without tattoos at all are a minority.
Adolescents are JUST as annoying traveling as they are at home. You know the middle/high schoolers going on church mission trips to wherever wearing matching tee-shirts, holding hands, sneaking kisses and hanging all over each other. Your exuberance to finding the meaning of life is irritating to say the least.
TSA people have short fuses and are NOT to be messed with. If you are a man, do not ask (in a loud and pompous tone) “Is there any additional staff that can come to help with this line? We are going to be late! This is ridiculous!” You may be forcibly removed or told to find another line. Can anyone say cavity search?
Flight attendants know how to pack. Except the American Airlines attendant I saw today with 4 suitcases. Yes, 4! I believe that is 3 over the legal limit. Did she pay the fees?
It seems that a majority of planes have some kind of mechanical issue that results in delayed departures. Are planes just so old that we are now patching them together and hoping for the best? Is there not a better excuse for delaying a flight? Can’t we come up with something that doesn’t put the thought of a metal casket in our heads just before having to board? If I was not OK with meeting my Maker, I would not fly.
There are a lot of unusual names out there. Like Salami. And Sissy. Nixon (as a first name). And Rotund? (So unfortunate.) Paging Apple Paltrow, please report to the guest services desk on concourse A.
Airport language: counters are called desks.
I believe the bathroom attendant in the H concourse of O’Hare may be the happiest employee on Earth. She sings while she works. She checks each stall for cleanliness after each use. She strikes up conversations with all the ladies and says things like “Thank you for stopping by” and “I hope our paths cross again sometime”. Now that I think about it, I am not sure she was wearing a uniform.
I do not like being honked at. If I cut you off in traffic on a highway, then OK, you have my permission to lay on the horn. But when driving an elderly couple in a vehicle mimicking a golf cart down an aisle way for walking purposes, do not honk at me. I may jump out of my skin, and shriek like I have been tazed. I am surrounded by 2000 other people and we have nowhere to go. You will just have to sit comfortably in your cart, creeping along behind us.
I believe I have just seen a circus act. Or maybe a Cirque du Soleil performer. Lady, at 10 o’clock, with bright orange curly hair, carrying 5 large, hoola-hoop size rings made of copper and metal, draped across her body like a Miss America sash. Are those carry ons?
If you need to announce how to use a moving sidewalk, maybe we shouldn’t have moving sidewalks.
Sometimes you get to sit next to people who are adorably pleasant and you have such a wonderful conversation chatting with them that your slight fear of take-off and landing are subdued. Like the teacher from Ohio visiting her sister in Dexter, IA. She liked Iowa so well, she stretched her 1-week vacation to a month. And it isn't even State Fair yet! Or the empty-nester dad coming home after taking his college children on an once-in-a-lifetime backpacking trip through Europe. He had to have been exhausted but he chatted with me and we found out we live in the same part of town. And you know what – I didn’t see a single decked-out hiking backpack among them.
If we need to demonstrate how to use a seatbelt, maybe our states do not have adequate seatbelt laws.
Turn off a 3-year-olds ipod/iphone to prepare for take-off and he will make a shrill ear-drum-piercing sound like you have never heard. For the love of all that is Holy, let him keep it on! Sincerely, 9B
Women are tolerant and men are not. Maybe we are so used to being disappointed or inconvenienced everyday that a little airport inconvenience is no ruffle in our feather. Or maybe we know that any inconvenience here is one less minute of the complete chaos going on at home. Either way, we are downing Peroni’s, wine or margaritas and quite fine with mechanical delays.
P.S. Today the client said YES – I’ve still got it!
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