It’s about time that I blog about something besides teaching. There’s no way that my throngs of fans want to hear ONLY about my experience with six-year-olds who throw up on themselves (true story). So I’m taking a break from it for a moment—after all, it is a vacation weekend.
Currently I’m sitting in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, Gate C17. I flew out of this same gate when I left for training this summer. I am a full two hours early for my flight. I tell people that I get to the airport so early because I don’t want to miss my flight, but in truth, I really just like hanging out in airports. I talked to the security guard at the checkpoint, the barista at Starbucks, and the bathroom attendant for about ten minutes each. I love it. I love sitting outside of Pizza Hut Express wondering if one of the workers could smuggle in a knife when they come to work. Overall, it’s pretty useless and stupid thinking, but I can’t help it.
Another thing I love about airports is the babies. Notice that I said babies in AIRPORTS, not airplanes. I sat next to the sweetest little baby on the shuttle bus from parking. He had a gigantic round head and huge blue eyes. And some drool crusted on his mouth. He was so cute. I wish I could let naptime drool crust over my mouth and still be cute. But, come departure time, and I’ll have done a total 360, but inside the terminals they’re my best friends. I like to give their parents that look of “How cute!” that also says “Good luck on the flight where everyone will curse your existence.”
People watching (and baby watching) in airports is top notch. Where else do all these people HAVE to come together and interact? You’re spending at least an hour together in these tiny tubes flying through the air, close quarters for even people who know each other well. I always try to guess why people are in here. There’s a woman in yoga pants Facebooking on a Mac. The guy in front of me at security had a huge skateboard in his carry-on, a black and red mural stenciled carefully on the bottom that matched his hat and his shoes. How cool! It made me want to learn how to skateboard.
And just now I’m watching a woman get off a plane from Florida with a HAT BOX. A hat box. I didn’t know woman actually still wore the kinds of hats that required a hat box. I’d like to think she just liked the look of it, strapped over her shoulder with its gold foil casing reflecting off of the stark white lights, but then what do you actually put in a hat box if there isn’t a hat box in it? Jewelry? Scarves? I’d love to go ask her, but I get a weird feeling from ladies who wear hats.
My normal routine for airports is to get a coffee and a trashy magazine, plop myself down in my terminal, and just stare at people. Now that I’m an adult, I made myself get a New Yorker instead of an Us Weekly but my routine is the same. Looking at military people usually takes up a large chunk of my people-watching because of all the stories they probably have. I picture them getting deployed, flying helicopters, taking shooting practice. I wonder if they like the luggage that their respective branches make them carry when they come to the airport.
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