Hell exists. It is Miami. Satan’s throne is the Miami International Airport. It is 4am and it is 86 degrees outside. It is not much cooler in the terminal. The woman on the speaker tells me (every ten minutes) that “unattended baggage will be removed, towed or destroyed”. Then she tells me again in Spanish. Every fifteen minutes she comes on to tell me, “The current, local time is: three, forty five, am”. Current. Local. Two unnecessary words in that constantly recurring announcement. I do not expect to hear what time it was in Bangladesh 27 minutes ago. Patience has gone out the window and sanity is close on its heels. I do not know how much longer I can fake this smile. The next random passenger who just stops suddenly while walking in front of me is getting bowled over.
And they aren’t passengers. Wanna know a secret? The airport hires these people as extras to walk around and make your life just a little more hellish while you travel. There are people walking around this place from one end of the list to the other. Some are dressed like a fashion model and some are the walking dead. It’s like Halloween all year long. They root through all the lost baggage and play dress-up, then they walk around for an eight-hour shift just to get in our way and to ask silly questions like, “Is the ‘Military Lounge’ just for military people?” Ummmm, yes?
And who in their right mind walks into the airport with a full upright bass without a case? I saw a guy checking a sailboard into luggage. The thing was twelve feet long! One woman came in with a four foot tall framed picture of Jesus. Nothing to protect it except God and the airport’s plastic wrap service. For once I have more faith in god than I do in technology. I give up. I really can’t take much more. I really have gone crazy from the heat. I need a drink, I need a vacation, I need a bullet in the head.
Leave a Reply