Well then there, it’s been a while. It hasn’t been for lack of travel, but rather lack of motivation or really just plain laziness. Are those the same? Happily, I’ve been collecting stories along the beaten path and managed to jot most of them down. This is a collection of a few of those. There is no common theme aside from me, which I guess is the common theme. Hey, there is a common theme. It’s me.
A while back I was on a flight from Baltimore to San Francisco. As the plane was coming in for landing the stew came on the intercom and announced gates for connections. She honestly announced a gate connection for Toronto. If someone was actually flying from Baltimore to Toronto and connecting through San Francisco they are even more of a glutton for frequent flyer miles than I am.
I was connecting through O’Hare and had a bit of a layover so I decided to sneak in to the Admirals Club. Now this might sound shocking, but I was quietly enjoying a beer, when this fellow started flipping out. Let me first describe the gentleman’s appearance. He was a little older, gray hair, and was probably between his second and third trimester of having a food baby. He had a pretty snug fitting plain white t-shirt on, equally as snug navy sweat pants, and a big, beautiful pair of brilliant white walking shoes. Oh, and he was carrying one of those old school leather bound brief cases. He was walking through the area of tables when he noticed an iPhone just sitting on one of the tables by itself. While there were several people in the area no one was accompanying the phone. He stopped dead in his tracks and to no one in particular shouted in a somewhat terrified voice, “who’s cell phone is this?” A few people looked up from their laptops briefly, but then went back to what they were doing (I assumed they were engrossed in one of my little stories because most of them looked confused and annoyed). Alarmed that the general public wasn’t taking him or this threat serious enough he shouted even louder “who’s cell phone is this, it’s starting to make a buzzing noise?” I should mention that he hadn’t moved an inch. Neither had I for that matter, but now he was kind of hunched over with his knees slightly bent and his arms out to his side. He was in a cat like stance prepared to make a move in any direction if the situation dictated it. I was riveted. Sure enough though, the phone had started buzzing. I chalked it up to the owner probably calling their phone in hopes of tracking it down and it being on vibrate. This gentleman, however, took it as an affront to his own personal safety and an attack on our nation’s security. His latest outburst did catch the attention of one of the waitresses who walked over and calmly picked up the phone. At this, the guy literally jumped backwards as far as he could, which was about six inches, and crouched down holding his briefcase in front of him as some sort of impromptu shield. 
After he realized nothing had happened when the waitress jarred the would be bomb from its resting place he said in a very grave and serious tone, “you shouldn’t have done that. I’ve seen enough cop shows to know that you never pick up an unknown device.” (Really pal, you are making your life decisions based on cop shows? Was it Cagney or Lacey that gave you that little gem of wisdom?) She just looked at him bewilderedly and then walked off toward the reception area. He stood back up and continued on his way to find a table clearly out of harm’s way. I stood, saluted him, and returned to my beer.
It’s a Sunday. It’s six in the morning. I’m standing in the security line in Seattle. Needless to say, I’ve been in better moods. To make things worse I chose, of course, I’m in the slowest line. There were three lines available and I did my usual scan to try and avoid oldies, people with kids, retards, and cripples in an effort to expedite my way through the line. What I came to find out is that two of the lines went to one TSA agent while the third line went to only one TSA agent. Of course the third line was flying along and I got to sit there as people were streaming past me. As I slowly plodded my way toward the front I was getting more and more heated. Not only were people filing past me at a steady rate I was seeing people clear the metal detectors and be on their way to their planes and far off magical places. As for me on the other hand, I was headed for Boca Raton…far off, yes, but definitely not magical.
And that’s when I saw him, the guy that randomly pulls people out of line for an extra security screen and I knew I was fucked. They never pick the person with the happy demeanor or smiling face. They look for the pissed off people because I have to believe they have a pretty shitty job and they want to pick people that are as miserable as they are so they can console each other. But it doesn’t work that. And so of course he picks me just as I’m getting to the lady and all I can say is “really?” “Really what?” is his reply. And apparently “really” isn’t all I can say. “Does this make any sense to you? Two lines going to one person while one line goes to one person.” “Save your breath pal, I hear it every day”, was his reply. “And yet you choose to do nothing about it? Congratulations, you just defined apathy.” (so I’m not sure if apathy is exactly the right word, but remember it was 6 in the morning on a Sunday, it was the best I could come up with) He didn’t like that.
I should mention that while we were conversing he was performing his extra security screen, which consisted of pulling out a moist toilette thingy, wiping my hands off, and then putting it in a machine. Back to our conversation, “Are we going to have a problem” he asked. “Me, I’m not going to have a problem. I’m assuming I passed.” He nodded affirmatively and then I continued, “but you might have a problem. I’m assuming you are going to be right back here tomorrow.” I grabbed my bag and was on my way. I left him with “thanks for cleaning my hands off.” He just glared at me and hurriedly scurried toward the metal detector in fear of a cavity search in retaliation. I’m flying from Orange County back home to Seattle. It’s been a pretty exhausting couple of days. Five flights in three days and covering a little over six thousand miles. So I was a bit tuckered and to top it off I had a middle seat. It was bulkhead, but still, a middle. Sitting on either side of me were two, younger, super nerds. Alright, so maybe that’s a little unfair, but they each had iPhones and Blackberry’s. In my book, anyone with two phones gets labeled a nerd. We hadn’t taken off yet so these two are swapping between playing on their iPhones and messaging on their Blackberry’s. What made these two “super” nerds was that they were playing some sort of game against each other on their iPhones and messaging one another on their Blackberry’s. This was pretty easy to figure out because one would type something and seconds later the other would pause the game, read the message, and snicker. When you have two people on either side of you secretly messaging and snickering it can’t help but make you a bit uncomfortable. So I offered up the option to trade seats so they could sit next to each other and actually verbally converse.
They declined. The funny bit was as soon as we were airborne and the captain turned off the seatbelt sign one of them jumped up and grabbed their iPad. The other one then asked me if I would mind switching seats so they could play a game on the iPad. I chuckled and he said, “no, seriously.” Too tired, I said whatever and we traded seats. The reality was that I kinda wanted to see what cool game they’d be playing. I was thinking grandiose thoughts involving the iPad and the iPhones and then I saw them pull it up…Monopoly. “Really fellas, monopoly”, I disappointedly said. “Oh, it’s really fun”, they replied.
No comments:
Post a Comment