A travel day

I was wandering around O’Hare airport the other day, working out the kinks from three days of mostly sitting and I spent a couple of hours noticing the people who inhabit this, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world.

I had the Rosemary Chicken at Wolfgang Puck’s. I strolled H and K and L concourses.  I watched a young couple who were obviously smitten with each other and wishing they were alone, remembering what it was like when Mary and I first travelled together (to Ohio for my baptism of fire with her family – I survived).

The massage station fascinated me. I can’t imagine allowing a stranger to knead and push and poke my body and it’s amazing to me that people will actually pay to have it done. Different strokes, I guess (pun intended). I moved on when I realized one of the masseurs was looking at me oddly. Probably thought I was a creeper, especially if he’d noticed me the first two times I’d trundled by.

I watched people queuing up for a flight and wondered if I look that stressed when I am waiting to board. One airport employee came up escorting two elderly passengers, pushing both wheelchairs, one in each hand, seemingly effortlessly. I really hope he makes good tips.

A plane landed from Orlando and I chuckled at the parade of kids sporting mouse ears and princess costumes. There’s almost nothing more precious or funnier than a little girl in a food-stained Cinderella ball gown and wearing a plastic tiara, with missing front teeth and well-worn galumphy tennis shoes with falling down socks.

I wondered if these kids had posed with a certain Tigger of my acquaintance or if they’d noticed a particular stilt walker.  Did they meet Mickey and Minnie and have breakfast with all the characters?

Of course, the Disney kids were accompanied by parents who looked uniformly bedraggled and just generally used up. No surprise, I suppose.

They weren’t all vacationers who came off that plane. There was the obligatory workaholic gal with the barely legal roll-on and the phone plastered to her ear. The lost souls who clearly had no idea where to go to catch their next flight which, judging by body language and panicked expressions, was due to depart momentarily.

I saw a whole congo line of emergency vehicles screaming down the flight line toward some catastrophe off stage right. I wondered briefly what the problem might be and hoped everyone was okay.

Soon enough, it was time to head for my gate and as I was about to walk through the ‘MVP Line,’ I was almost bowled over by a middle-aged couple who were clearly in a big hurry to board. The man threw a glare over his shoulder. Guess he told me!

I travel by air a lot and so I sometimes get upgraded to sit in the non-cramped seats. This was one of those times. I was in the last row of first class and the unpleasant couple-in-a-hurry were two rows behind, clearly indignant to see me in First. Whatever….

The guy next to me was a Microsoft exec with a fourteen year old daughter who does not yet know what she wants to do with her life. I assured him that was part of the plan. We talked about TED talks and Randy Pausch and living your passion. And daughters.

Lots of turbulence as the pilots did their best to skirt storms that made the national news. I love turbulence. One thing about riding in the front of the plane – it’s generally inhabited by folks who fly enough not to be bothered by the occasional bump or slump. And the flight attendant was a middle aged pro who did her job without a stumble.

And then we landed, and Mary was waiting in baggage claim.

It was a good travel day.