Thursday, March 11, 2010

Wheee....airports.

Once again, I find myself compelled to write about the joys that come from hopping around airports all day. Mostly because I decided to drop $8 on a Boingo session, and now I feel that I ought to use it. Well, Rachel, that was silly, you might be saying to yourself...and you're probably right. But let's face it--I have the attention span of a retarded flea and if you expect me to sit around the Chicago airport for 3 hours without Internet access, you expect far too much of me. I'm also being a bitch and using one of the handicap outlets at the outlet kiosk. I figure I'll limp away if I get yelled at by anyone.

But it was either this or go be enthralled by all of the sparkly stores and restaurants, where I wound spend lots of money I don't have on things I don't need. Like the $7 *cough* Foreign Policy magazine I got at BWI. I have an unfortunate love for that magazine, and when I've got 3 hours (yes, I show up obnoxiously early for flights due to a lifelong fear of missing stuff) to kill...I tend to buy things. Retail shops in airports remain in business because of people like me. In fact, I'm convinced that this whole "show up for your flight 2 hours early" thing is a conspiracy between TSA and retailers. Because if you're in the airport for multiple hours at a time, you're going to buy shit. Lots of shit.

Oh, did I forget to mention where I'm going? I'm flying into Halifax to go up to Cape Breton to "conduct interviews for my undergraduate thesis," as I'm telling curious people. And I'm going on a partial Honors grant. I'm pretty excited, but mostly I'm stressed out at the ridiculous amount of work this means that I have to do before I graduate. But we won't talk about that now.

What we will talk about is the jolly old time I had in security at BWI this morning. The line was really really REALLY long, and in response to people complaining, this dude in front of me started talking to me. I didn't catch all of it, but it was mostly about how he's willing to sacrifice his freedoms for the good of his country, and how it's part of being a member of a free country, and how you surrender your rights once you walk into an aiport, and how he was in law school before 9/11 and got into a big debate with the dean of the law school about this, who eventually apologized for disagreeing with him, and yadda yadda yadda...yawn.

I cut him off and asked where he went to law school. He said Texas. A Texan and a lawyer. Based on those two character traits alone, I decided that he was the most obnoxious fuckwad I'd ever met. This was confirmed when he asked me where I went to school, I responded, and he said, "Ah, American! A liberal hippie then. I had a friend at AU--she hated it there. She was a military person, really cool, but man, she hated hippies. Where are your Birkenstocks?"

Rather than ripping into him for typecasting and being a conservative prick, as I should have done and was dying to do, I decided not to pick a fight in security and instead said something about the militaristically liberal contingent of students and how most of us aren't like that...then said that I find Birkenstocks to be uncomfortable, thank you. Not a terribly biting retort.

I always come up with great responses for these situations well after the fact (don't we all), but I've taken to retorting with large words in large sentences that usually shut the other person up. Fortunately, in this case, I had to step through the metal detector and leave him behind.

Then, my metronome in my violin case decided to turn on right as I put the case on the conveyor belt. I almost had a heart attack, but fortunately, it was too noisy for any of the TSA agents to hear the steady ticking noise...and I did manage to turn it off in time.

And now, suddenly, I'm thinking about all the crap I have to do in order to graduate in less than 2 months, and I really want a beer.

All right. Enough whining for now. Peace out, homekids.

No comments:

Post a Comment