Airport Despair

As you probably know, I travel a lot and the airport has been my second home at times. More times than not it's not a good experience and more times than not it's not the airlines fault for the bad experience (did you understand that?). The people. Oh, the people. You cant just let anyone out of the house these days. Here's a synopsis of a trip:

The greatest people-watching, outside of porn, is at the airport. It is like a big Savannah watering hole, where you are exposed to unfamiliar groups.

I don't know if the girls are truly hot, or merely "airport hot," but any woman of legal breeding age looks stunning next to the sloths riding the beeping golf carts.

I'm at the urinal trying to unload the 50 tons Ginger Ale I had on the 18-hour flight from India, when in walks Bluetooth Guy. He is yakking away as people look to see if he is talking to them. He enters a stall and sits...still yakking away. I wisely get out of there before the bomb hatch opens.

I'm now hungry so I head to the nearest TGI Fridays for a small snack and brew. Thirty minutes after waiting for a free table...I sneak into a seat that's still warm and snatch it right from the hands of Grandma and her three grand kids who are beating the hell out of each other. After thirty more minutes passes I finally spot a waiter who cares more about taking a smoke break than his job. I place the order and after 30 more minutes I get a luke-warm beer and no food. I now have to hurriedly make my way to the plane which is boarding in 10 minutes. I cancel the order and decline the beer then sneak to the plane for refuge, a bag of peanuts and miniature Jack and Coke.

As I enter the plane, I noticed that we have a female pilot. A female pilot normally would have made me nervous, as I imagined her putting on her lipstick in the rear view mirror during takeoff. However, one look at her and I knew that she hadn't worn lipstick since the one time at a junior high sleepover, when the girly girls made her up to look pretty, and she felt so uncomfortable that she got a mullet cut the next day.

As I sit down in the exit row, I find out I am sitting next to Chatty Middle-Aged Woman. She had just gotten a divorce and wanted to tell me all about it.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but I've really got to read this," I said as I held the plane-exit diagram card in my hands.

"My ex-husband used to read that before he decided after 22 years of marriage he wanted to get his own apartment ..."

I get up and move to the only empty row on the plane.

Thirty seconds before we pushed away from the gate, I heard a loud voice barking, "Excuse me! Coming through." In walks Bluetooth Bathroom Guy, and he sits down right next to me.

"Sorry, man. I had to drop a deuce. Hey, what to see pictures of my 8 kids?"

I pretended to be asleep for two hours.