Delay the Friendly Skies

The airport was slammed. We checked in at the kiosk. Checked our luggage. Then stood in a four-mile line so that TSA agents could fondle us. Then we rushed to our terminal, hauling our baggage, just in time for…

Our flight to be delayed.

So we wait. Because that’s what you do in airports. You wait. Airports are a lot like nursing homes in that regard, with the main difference being that in nursing homes at least you can look forward to your funeral.

But in an airport, there are no funerals. Only waiting. Hundreds of thousands wait in airports every day, playing on phones, sleeping in the upright position, standing in long lines, or just generally weeping and gnashing their teeth.

Some people get so fed up with waiting they go stand in line and wait to speak to the manager. As though this will un-delay their flight.

Most stalled passengers will at some point have a phone conversation in an airport, speaking in the same volume you might use if you were taking a phone call during a Who concert. Nobody knows why they do this.

“DID JOHN CALL THE OFFICE YET?!” a junior businessman might shout into his phone. “HE DIDN’T? WELL, HE SAID HE WOULD! OH, YOU DID!? WELL WHAT DID YOU SAY?! YOU DIDN’T! OH, YOU DID!? WHAT DID HE SAY?! HE DIDN’T…?”

These are the people who will run the nation someday.

So anyway, that’s what we’re doing. Waiting in an airport. I am writing to you, with my laptop, perched on my knees. But I’m not complaining because I love airplanes.

When I was little, my mother said I was obsessed with airplanes. I’d run into the yard and point to the sky and shout, “Air-pane! Air-pane!”

“Isn’t my son smart?” Mama would exclaim.

“Well,” Granddaddy would reply, “he’s fourteen years old.”

Consequently, I can still remember my first plane trip. I remember sitting next to my cousin on the flight. Neither of us looked out the window because my cousin found a discarded “Cosmopolitan” magazine in the pocket of our seat.

We were glued to the magazine throughout the trip, often remarking in our quietest stage whispers, “Oh my GOD, women actually DO THAT?”

Inevitably, one of the female flight attendants would walk by and give us a scolding look. As she’d walk away we’d whisper in voices loud enough to peel paint, “I WONDER IF SHE DOES THAT!”

Then we’d laugh until our uretal organs exploded as nearby passengers glared at us, emitting powerful hate rays.

So, I don’t mind when flights are delayed. Really I don’t. Airport delays can be fun.

You get to sleep on the floor. You get to take a spit bath in the drinking fountain. You receive valuable airline vouchers for airport food which costs as much as a Range Rover, and tastes like one, too.

You get to use the airport men’s room, where hordes of professionals in three-piece suits rush toward urinals as though they were the last choppers out of Saigon. You get to listen to the nonstop greatest hits of Neil Diamond.

We’ll get out of here someday. Eventually. And when that finally happens, I know exactly where I’ll be going.

The nursing home.