Well, it’s been a month and it’s been a great month – back at home with the Shadow and the kids, but alas, I'm now back in Texas. On my way back I got to spend a good deal of time wandering around the airport in Washington DC while waiting for my flight and I wanted to post some observations - namely traveling allows you to see cool stuff.
If you’re one of those folks who doesn’t use public transportation much, think of this as my way of preparing you for when you do. Having said all that, I’m sure most of us have seen worse things in Wal-Mart than I can possibly describe here. Anyway…
I’ve had to spend a lot of time in airports over my life. I once spent several days sleeping in a terminal in Germany waiting for a flight to England. Despite that I was still a little surprised when I saw a guy sprawled across several seats with a newspaper over his head and his shoes AND socks off, curled up and snoozing away. I’ll forgive the shoes, but damn, man, put the socks back on. I didn’t wait to see him wake up, but I’d be willing to bet that when he did, he parked himself in front of one of the airport TVs (the ones with no sound) and put his hand in his underwear and slouched. Just a hunch.
I’m also still continually amazed that some people can look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and say to themselves, “Yes, this is a good look,” and walk out in public wearing a bright yellow jacket, tight pants and a white shirt tight enough for casual passers-by to realize the wearer has exactly three rolls of muffin top. Nobody needs that. Traveling is bad enough already.
I love our freedoms as Americans but just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I think, in the vein of flash-mobs, we should institute flash justice. If I see something like the yellow coat lady, I should be able to put out a flash justice alert and 50 people should gather and just slap some common sense into the offender - or rub her down with loose fit denim or something. Or tackle the sleeping guy and wrap his feet in an airtight plastic bag.
What I’d really like to do while traveling though is kick people who have no volume control on their own voices. If you have to answer your phone in public, I get that, but use your movie theater voice for crying out loud. If you are going to have a volume-11 conversation, dammit I want to know what happened to Greg that meant your friend had to pick him up at 3 in the morning. You shouldn’t be allowed to leave the people around you hanging like that. Tell everyone the story or just shut the hell up. We don't care which.
The one semi-decent thing I did see, however was a woman losing her mind at the poor guy working the gate counter because some Army National Guard staff sergeant (in uniform) arrived late for his flight. She was practically screaming at the gate attendant because the plane was still parked there and the jetway was still attached to the plane, yet the cabin door was closed and by their airlines’ rules, once that happens, too bad.
Turns out the Sergeant was heading home after a couple months training in the mid-west somewhere so I don’t think it was quite the crisis the lady was making it out to be. She was just caught up in the fervor of trying to do something nice for a person in uniform – which is certainly commendable. But she was about a decibel shy of being carted away by security.
That would have been cool to see.
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