After banging shins on hurdles from showing off your driver's license every 20 feet to swearing you've ever even heard of terrorism, airports offer no better welcome than a legion of Blue-toothed, headphone-clad, cellphone loud-talkers and surly business travellers?
Actually, on this trip, it took about 90 seconds to check in, get boarding passes and cross security.
So I had plenty of time to listen to strangers escape their surroundings with whatever technological addiction gave them comfort. Some woman who I'll never see again was complaining that security didn't want to let her husband through because his only ID was an expired driver's license.
Little hint, ma'am - if it won't pass the bartender's muster, the reactionaries at the airport won't be sympathetic either. Renew that mo-fo and stop griping about mistakes you're 40 years too old to defend.
People are always friendlier on evening return flights; they're headed home, settling in business trip or just ready to end their staggered time in indifferent airports.
In a 12-hour period, I flew three times, landed in two cities where important people to me live, and saw none of them. I've always been one of those people who when traveling will make the effort to visit friends along the way (or just off it). That's always a blow, when travel does not allow intersection with our essential people and time evaporates down to pure business and leave no drop unclaimed.
It's impossible to move anywhere near Chicago quickly; the city's streets are a grinding mess of 4-way stops, its highways never shake off congestion, the El putters above those streets and the two major airports thrive on delays.
For laughs, I yanked the airline magazine from the seat pocket and who do I find but Thomas Alan Waits on the cover. Congratulations, Southwest Airlines, you've produced an airline magazine actually worth taking off the plane.
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