Now I Remember Why I Hate This

 

I hadn’t taken a flight since September of 2019. It’s been over thirty years since I’d gone that long without flying. Usually at least a few times a month. Sometimes we forget why we dislike something…and then it comes back.

Traveling during Covid only adds to the aggravation. When’s the last time you wore a mask for over seven hours and weren’t performing a major surgery?

Leaving from Pittsburgh on a Wednesday night at 6:30 meant it wouldn’t be crowded at the airport. I breezed through security and then realized I had a three and a half hour flight ahead of me and forgot to bring my IPad or a book. Thanks to Apple updates, my IPhone 6s holds a charge for about three minutes. I would try to grab something to read.

Apparently since the last time I flew, they stopped printing newspapers. Not only that, all of the magazines sucked and none of the books seemed interesting…I would try to sleep.

I boarded early and took a seat on the aisle. Everything was good until he got on the plane. A big, bald galoot that made his presence known by the thud his bag made when he threw it into the overhead. Then he sat diagonally across from me.

Oh, and his mask only covering his mouth. His big fat nose was sticking out the whole flight. Masks are not decorative pieces. If they were there to make you look better, it would have covered your whole ugly bald face. Instead of reading I focused my attention on hating this asshole for the whole flight into Denver.

When I arrived in Denver, I had an hour and a half until my connecting flight into Portland. I decided to take time to get a beer and something to eat. Although there were places open close to my arriving flight, I always like to get close to my departing gate before I sit down to eat.

I walked down the twenty gates toward my next flight and approached a restaurant. I stood at the hostess stand for a moment and then she walked up to me.

“Can I help you?”

“Do you have seating for one?”

“We’re closing in ten minutes and the wait is fifteen minutes.”

Did I really need the last part of that statement? Should I stand here for fifteen minutes so you can announce you’re closed? Do I look like that big of an idiot?

I should mention there were four people waiting.

Then the girl suggested I try the Steak House across the terminal…seriously? The airport Steak House…who goes to a Steak House at the airport.

“I’m flying into Denver tomorrow.”

“Are you there on business?”

“No, just out for dinner at the airport Steak House.”

When you go to a Steak place, you plan to spend a few hours and enjoy the meal. I wasn’t about to jam a giant slab of red meat down my throat and then pull up my mask and jam myself into a hot, crowded, bouncing tube for the next two and a half hours.

Anyway, the trip out to Oregon is fun. I’m in Lincoln City on the coast and Oregon is a beautiful state. I enjoy the shows and everything is relaxing until it’s time to come home.

Portland airport isn’t crowded for a Monday morning. Usually Monday is a big travel day but, we’re still in a pandemic.

The first flight is smooth and then I arrive at Chicago Midway for my layover. As I walk off the plane, it’s like the virus never happened. I’ve been in this airport many times but, never saw it this crowded. There was no social distancing…it was a zoo.

For my final flight home they announced it would be a full flight…aren’t we not supposed to be doing this?

Every seat would be filled, including the middle seats…aren’t we not supposed to be doing this?

As the plane started to fill, I came up with a plan. As people were checking for middle seats, like the one next to me, I would help them make a choice.

When any oversized person got near, I would begin to cough and wipe my head as if I were sweating profusely.

“Move along fatty…you don’t what I have and I don’t want what your fat ass jamming me in.”

It almost worked until some hacking six foot five guy with bony knees decided we could have stereo coughing. His lanky knee was cutting into me the whole way home.

Getting off the plane, all I wanted to do was get into the car with my wife and lock myself in the house. I was in the final stretch when I got to the tram car that takes you to baggage claim and pick up.

There were signs everywhere. Wear your masks…maintain social distancing outside and inside the tram cars…easy enough to understand. So why, when there were only four people on a car with twenty posts to hang onto…why did he come right next to me?

Seriously, this idiot came right next to me and grabbed onto the post I was leaning against so I didn’t have to touch it with my hands. Why would he do this…why was he so stupid…why were his parents aloud to breed?

And my wife wonders why I’m always in a bad mood when I first get into the car at the airport.