Part Man Part Machine All Cop

I like airports and railway stations and bus terminals. The crowds I ignore, but the spaces that they occupy appeal to me. High, high ceilings, large rooms, echoes, public address systems, bright lights, people hurrying to and fro.

Well, I like them in principle. I like them when I’m there for ten minutes, picking someone up or rapidly exiting the building.

Not when I’m there for four hours. Perhaps at three in the morning.

Apparently you can turn up a little too early for your flight. When the flight leaves at a quarter to seven, you do not need to turn up at the airport at a quarter to three, full of smug satisfaction that there will be no lines, you will breeze through security and can then nap for a couple of hours until your flight.

The first snag in that plan was the fact that the check-in personnel do not turn up until a half past four. Ergo no check in. Fine, I could snooze on the chairs in the cavernous waiting area.

Except that the chairs seemed to have been transplanted from some medieval torture chamber. One of the more unpleasant ones…where people would be subjected to hours and hours of home movies of the torturer and his family on vacation. The poor victims would be forced to flip through the torturer’s photo albums. Pictures of the torturer and his hideously ugly family besmirching the landscape, grinning up into the camera lens as they obscure the beautiful countryside behind them.

Except that video cameras hadn’t made their appearance until the Renaissance. So that wouldn’t be a medieval torture chamber. It would be a Renaissancical… Renaissancified… Renaissancificated…um post-medieval pre-industrial age torture chamber.

(Again, I have no fucking clue about where I’m going with this. When I set off to write this post, I was going to describe falling asleep on the chair in the reception area, waking up at five and being confronted by a huge line at the security checkpoint.

Right after that would be long rant about me having to dump a can of deodorant in the trash because of the new restrictions and then being pulled aside for extra screening because of my contact lens solution.

That was to be followed by me describing the long and arduous trek to my gate only to find that my flight was taking off from another gate, the one that I had passed by on my way to the gate I was currently at. The new gate was next to a Starbucks, one that had deliciously unhealthy espresso brownies that I just cannot resist.

And I would have wrapped up with a few well chosen swear words against the people who insist on sitting next to me at the waiting area (New waiting area next to the gate). I spread out for a reason. I need my space. When I sprawl it mean: Do not sit next to me. You will take up valuable armrest space.

That’s another thing that puzzles me. Armrest etiquette. Say at a movie theater. How do you decide who gets the shared armrest? Do you take turns? First come first serve. Possession is nine tenths of the law? Tactical nuclear weapons? Puppy dog eyes? A dance-off? Low intensity urban conflict? Televised debate?

Or we could all decide to give up the right one and use only the left one. Or vice versa. A wonderfully balanced socialist system. But then one person in the row will have twice the number of armrests as the rest of the proletariat? Does that make them a member of the politburo? Is Big Brother watching? Does non conformity to the established armrest line mean opposition to the Party? Is war peace? Is the Truth False?

(Again, I have no fucking clue where I’m going with this little sidebar. I’m guessing that today’s theme is incoherence. I do believe that every day should have a theme. And not easy themes like Casual Fridays, or Hung-over Mondays. We need greater challenges, Nihilistic Wednesdays. Split Infinitive Thursdays. Mild Discomfort Saturdays. Got Out Of Bed and Tripped Over a Laptop-Bag Tuesdays. Filibustering Second Sunday Of Any Month With The Letter S In It. Pretend That You Are a Large Head of Lettuce Mondays.))

I think I should stop now.

So I did.

Pretend That You Are Robocop Wednesdays.

Well I’m done.

Really.

Hop At Work Thursdays.