Airport Musings

I'm sitting in the Melbourne airport waiting to catch a flight to Atlanta for a meeting one Friday afternoon and I can think of better ways to spend my day then sitting there at that gate waiting for a flight that doesn't seem like it is ever gong to arrive. I'm not alone sitting there with my carry-on luggage and my boarding pass. there are about twenty-two other passengers waiting for a flight that was determined not to want to take off on it's scheduled time of departure. Wait a minute! The pinched face woman standing at the delta counter right next to gate door number 7 is picking up the mike to possibly make an announcement. "Attention passengers on Flight #1637 bound for Atlanta, that is scheduled to depart at 2:09pm, we are sorry to announce that Atlanta airport is experiencing Air Traffic Control problems at this time. I know we were to have started boarding the plane thirty minutes ago, but the pilots felt that it would be more comfortable for everyone to wait here in the departure lounge then on the plane. We will be delaying departure for another hour since we have to wait for clearance from Atlanta at this time. Please stay close to the this concourse for further notice." Guess I'm not going anywhere just yet. I could have stayed at work for another hour or two and gotten the rest of my paperwork filed and some more items completed! Instead, I chose to come to the airport an hour and a half before my scheduled departure time so that I could get through security smoothly, just as my electronic ticket and traveling papers advised! So here I have sat, for the last two hours, next to a column at gate #7 that has an outlet where I could plug my laptop in and play solitaire on to pass the time away. I'm a people watcher though, and solitaire is an easy way to occupy myself while unobtrusively watching the crowds come and go as planes arrive and depart around me. I wonder if I'm going to get to Atlanta in time to make the "getting to know you" first night dinner banquet? I like to call those first night conference dinners "Mingle and Mangles". Where everyone mingles and passes out their business cards which get mangled because they get shoved into pockets of suit coats or purses and promptly forgotten. It's more like who can collect the most business card trophies for a prize at the end of the conference. Do some of the attendees every really look at those cards again after collecting them? I doubt it. If it's a meeting that I have to attend for something specific for work, then I file that card in the binder that goes with that specific meeting in case I need to actually contact that person. But if i get duplicates or if I get cards from other attendees that I know I will never need to talk to, I use them as bookmarks or tape them together and use them as makeshift drink coasters. I jot notes on them and then throw them out when they are no longer useful. I know other people do it with mine right? But back to my drawn out afternoon in this airport. I hate to check my luggage. It's why I pack extremely light. Just what I need and nothing more. I've checked luggage before and have had it shipped to states that I wasn't traveling to! Ive also lost it for good! There is probably a hard-sided pale blue suitcase of mine with summer vacation clothes still lost in some hell hole of a storage room in some backwater airport in Six Pack Junction, Iowa. Just sitting there in a section earmarked for unclaimed luggage. Lonely, lost, dusty, sad. Oh well. If it ever did make it's way back to me seven years after it got lost, none of it would fit anyways, so it's better off wherever it's at! All out of style, out of fashion, out of favor. So I carry everything with me on board or it doesn't go with me. But walking around with your rollerboard has it's limitations. It can be a hassle fitting in to the women's stalls sometimes. Those things can be way too narrow! You have to sidle in there, drage your suitcase in with you, inch sideways, roll it one way, step another, squeeze the door shut, manuever the door the other way, well you are starting to get the picture now right? But then, when it's time to get off the plane, I can just go! I don't have to figure out where to find baggage claim and go there to wait endlessly for the light to start flashing over the moving beltway and to pray that my luggage I can walk on out of the airport and be on my way! To get back to the endless waiting for the flight though! It's 3:35 and the same woman is picking up the mike and every single person at that gate looks like a prairie dog peeking it's head up out of the den. Is she going to be announcing that our flight will be boarding? Oh please, let it be so!"Attention Flight #1637 for Atlanta, we are happy to announce that we will begin boarding in 10 minutes. So if you will check your boarding passes, look to see what zone number is listed on your pass and we will be boarding by zone numbers.When you hear your zon # called, proceed to the gate in an orderly fashion." I look at my boarding pass and Now, I've looked at this pass a hundred times since I've arrived at the airport and never once did I realize what zone I was in. Oh great! Zone 8. I'll be the last to board. This will take a while. At least we might make the Mingle and Mangle on time for me to get something to eat and get a new bookmark.