Airport Obsevations

Airport Observations

An elderly couple are people watching at the gate. They have matching canes. She has on bright yellow flats and he's reading yesterday's newspaper. His glasses rest on his hooked nose. He is wearing a brown leisure suit with a pale yellow shirt. The waist of his pants are near his armpits.  He has a snowy white goatee and a forehead that keeps going right to the middle of his head curtained by neat strings of white hair with touches of gray. She wears a sour expression under her trendy green glasses and glances ever so often at her kindle so no ones the wiser. They take bets on the Blossom look-a-like eating her Fudruckers in the seat across from us. "How many mushrooms will fall off before she's done?" And "how long will it be before she wipes the mayo off her chin?"

Blossom leaves after dropping no less than five mushrooms, mayo still intact. The woman gives her husband a superior look and he lets out a spirited cackle. They drop their gazes down to their distractions, occasionally looking up surveying for their next contest.

Further down there is a matchy couple with piggish faces and idle eyes. Mrs. Piggy fans herself and Mr. Piggy has a faint line of sweat on his brow. Mrs. Piggy stands up and puts on her tortoise shell sunglasses. She fans herself with more conviction. Mr. Piggy watches her with a placid look. His expressionless face moves ever so slightly away from his wife and then quickly back to her again and again.

Sitting close by, the girl clearly on drugs has a phone up to ear and is asleep. Every couple minutes she rouses up enough to mumble an incoherent string of words and then a "huh?" She is an interesting mix.  I can see her tongue piercing because she sleeps with her mouth open. Her eyes are rolled back under heavy black eyelined lids. A flat billed Cleveland hat tops off a Buckeyes' hoodie with sleeves pushed up just enough to show her nautical star tattoos. On the bottom she wears a pair of intentionally holey jeans and Timberlands. Her luggage is flowery and pink.

Waiting to board I find myself between a girl in a "Where's Waldo" type striped hat and glasses and a young man who reminds me of the song "thrift shop." He's in what must be his grandpa's blazer, a tie and a newsboy cap. he repeatedly pulls up and down on the handle of his roller bag. His ill-fitted sport coat sways as he shifts nervously from side to side.

As I walk on the plane I see the elderly couple and the piggies in first class. The first give me hard, dour looks and the latter seem to stare straight through me. Mrs. Piggy continues to fan herself.

I take my seat in the back and notice a man with a funny hat is in the row in front of me. He has his own seat. He's a traveler returning home from a trip. He strikes up a conversation with the middle-aged woman across the aisle. Her is seat mate is a quiet, reserved, similarly-aged, balding man. The traveler has the woman's full attention regaling her with stories of his journey and adventures he's experienced in the past few days. He shows her a roughly stitched wound on his left hand and tells her how a dentist had to sew him up. He then reveals he is a doctor and he coached the dentist through the work. He's left handed, otherwise the gash would have been easy to stitch himself, he says.

The traveler mentions Chicago which sparks the interest of the balding man. Soon it is discovered both men spent time at Wheaton college. This small shared experience is enough to melt away the balding man's careful demeanor and soon he is talking about a variety of topics from downtown Tulsa to the surgery he underwent  a few months ago. With this flood of information, the woman has now directed all of her attention to the balding man.

The traveler listens a bit then sits back and quietly studies his poorly stitched hand. He adjusts his hat and quickly starts catching up on the sleep he has lost while traveling as the plane takes off.