As I sit here in the Portland airport, I begin to ponder something(s). According to TSA Law, it is illegal for a person to be inebriated or appear intoxicated in any way. So Why is it that when you buy a beer at the bar in the concourse, they offer to enbiggen it for you for only a Dollar more, then when you gladly accept this offer (because one dollar more is not that bad of a deal on a 7 dollar beer), they offer to give you a shot of whatever you want for only 3 bucks.
3 dollars, I say!
What a steal… Seriously, people, I understand that you want those unruly business travelers and frat boys and Phobic people who freak out every time the plane makes any noise (including the little *bung* that is created when they push a button), to be unconscious for the duration of their flight, but come on. Inane conversations with people that you will never again meet can be tortuous enough without them thinking that they are your best friend and calling you Dave.
Thats right, <em>Dave</em>. I’m looking at you, guy in freshly-pressed polo shirt sitting next to me. If your son wasn’t a Coug I’d have rebuked you long ago.
Also on my mind:
-There is an F-15 taxing back and forth on the tarmac outside the window of the bar, air brake deployed and nose high in the air. Not trying to fly, just driving around with its nose in the air. I imagine that it is displaying this behavior in order to either: A) Scare away the larger, more aggressive but slower airliner which hog all of the space on the hammerhead or B) Attract a mate. I’m not sure which I am more comfortable with. While I am all for airplane/airplane love (I have heard that the military life is not conducive to long-lasting relationships), I don’t like the idea of a missile-armed interceptor competing for concrete space with its larger, slower and presumably less well armed brethren. Just seems like a potentially explosive situation (notice what I did there? explosive? genius.) So I guess I do know which I am more comfortable with. Whatever.
-Tiger Woods is not doing so well in the Masters. People in this bar (mostly stuffed suits) seem to be surprised by this, even angered. Business people, more than almost anyone, should understand that the laws of probability will catch up to anyone, and the odds of Le Tigre winning his 2,528,580,351,658 Masters in a row are pretty low.
-Why do they dress up the little plazas in airports to look like quaint little villages or trendy urban centers or, in my case, replica Columbia River Gorge Indian Villages. I mean inherent stereotyping aside (I don’t think that the decoration dept of the Port of Portland put too much thought into the historical accuracy of Native American bar-and-grills), I find it hard to believe that this aesthetic touch serves to help people forget that hey are sitting in the middle of a massive institutional building, surrounded by miracles of aviation technology (MD-80’s aside). I mean the wreak of kerosene and the constant rumbles of Fighter Planes looking for love should enough to make anyone think “hey, I think I’m in an airport. Jeez, and for a second there I had forgotten that I was not in the Pearl District. Must have been the beersandshotsandbeers.”
-Concurrence among bar patrons leads to many things, but the main thing that I can tell is that people can agree that babble is important part of sitting to close to people. This is a fact whether you are in an airport bar, and airplane, a train or any place where you are forced into close proximity with people who have been drinking and or sitting in an airport for 18 hours because McDonnel-Douglas makes airplanes whose nose-gear refuses to lock into place. That being said talking to people in a bar can turn out to be a profitable enterprise. I win.
