Friday, February 24, 2006
JFKonfusion
Seldom will you see such a mix. The plebs sit around trying to stay away from the plebs with screaming children. There must be something about airports that makes otherwise well-behaved children scream. I suppose it must be rookie traveller's booking styles, trying to cram as many stressful flights into one big shuffle across the globe as is possible. Sometimes more. Then you get me. The slightly better-ticketed pleb. I look down on the crappy plebs with their crappy seats and their crappy children and crappy shoes looking nervously at each even vaguely Middle-Eastern man walking past. There's a sense of desperation and distrust that's made all the more stark by the constant noise of chatter, screaming and unintelligible announcements combined with so many pairs of groincrumpled trousers. It's great. Every so often a seasoned, rested traveller from business or first class will race from the executive lounge, across the melee to the gate, and be ushered through a special door while everyone watches them beady eyed, secretly hoping they're actually just egomaniacal fools naively trying to talk their way through, but who'll be sent back whence they came. Then you get this chump. He looks well dressed, and comfortable with travelling, yet he's somehow decided to take the Cathay Pacific "Is Your Overhead Luggage OK?" machine and use it as his own personal trolley. I've decided he must be an academic or car-salesman from Kazakhstan. I got a few looks (again) as I brazenly followed him around taking photos, trying to get one that showed the trolley well enough. He turned around just after this one was taken, walked past me and disappeared into the crowd. I can't quite tell if it's weighing his bags at the time but he had thoroughly rammed them in for safety. Hopefully the overhead bins weren't taxed to greatly as a result. | ||
