Don't touch my bag if you please, Mr. Customs Man
So, I flew to St. Louis yesterday. And back. Left KCI at 6:30 am, back to KCI at 5:30 pm. In between, I suffered the worst hell imaginable. If I ever have to do that again (and I will, sooner than later), shoot me.
Ok, it wasn’t that bad. KCI wasn’t bad at all. Usually that early flight is overflowing with business types. No, I’m not a business type – you take that back. I’m not a self-important schmuck with four carry-on bags, one of those asinine ear-piece cell phones, a cup of Starbucks snot-sugar-latte (cocktail idea?), and a sickly odor of Michael Jordon cologne and Marlboro Lights.
No, that ain’t me. I take one bag. I don’t own a cell phone. I won’t pay anyone $4 for a cup of coffee, snot or not. And I usually smell like Speed Stick and hickory smoke. And it didn’t matter yesterday, because on the morning flight, I got the whole row of seats to myself. I spread out and relaxed, fired up a hibachi, and grilled some scallop kabobs for the crew and myself.
I have no idea what I was going to talk about. Oh, yeah. Eating in the airport. I didn’t.
I was in St. Louis to record a radio spot for a client, and the studio ordered in Mexican for lunch. I don’t know where the trend of making burritos the size of tanker trucks started, but I like it.
The big ass burrito kept me from being even remotely tempted to eat at the airport. Which is good, because there’s something about eating at the airport that is just disgusting. Well, at Lambert, anyway. Sometimes, a nice pre-flight bite is nice, especially when you can expense the hell out of it. But the thought of eating anything at that airport yesterday made my stomach turn.
I don’t know what it was, but Lambert felt dirty. Not good dirty, either. My truck is dirty, but I can eat in it. KCI isn’t all that clean, but it doesn’t make me sick to think about having a bagel there. But Lambert felt like it had been sprayed down, floor to ceiling, with Pam cooking spray. Not recently, but a few days ago – long ago enough for dust and grime and human skin and hair and farts and Michael Jordan cologne to settle into the grease.
The entire airport had a film on it, and some of it stuck to me. When I climbed in Sara’s car, she told me I smelled “airporty.� So, see, it wasn’t just me. I know I can bitch with the best of them. I’m not a curmudgeon, I’m a grouch. I admit that. And bitching about air travel is easy for me, if not predictable. But the Lambert Field Film that covered me yesterday, that was something different. And...crap – Lost is on. I can't finish this.
To be continued.
Ok, probably not. It’s a blog – I don’t need a proper conclusion.