A Travel Day
SLC to STL
Salt Lake City to Orlando.
I arrived one hour before my flight, standing in the small and swiftly moving security line. I learned my lesson from my previous flight that week — the headlines were wrong and the airports were the emptiest I’ve ever seen (this was just my personal experience at the five airports in total that I visited). Lots of passports caught my eye. Boarding passes were pulled out of pockets, wallets and pouches by flustered hands but were not necessary at this checkpoint. At least the line’s only glaring flaw was that they were overprepared. I threw my things into a bin. Shoes stayed on — a policy change since the last time I flew in August. But… some things never change, like the small crowd standing between me and my backpack that came through first on the conveyor belt. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I waited behind them for their luggage to arrive and eventually found my way to access my things.
I meandered to my gate but stopped as I passed a Utah gift shop. After many laps through the tiny shop, and much consideration, I grabbed a magnet and a ceramic shot glass that was perfect for the girls’ morning lattes (steamed milk and a drop of coffee for color). By the time I had purchased the goods, my knee was acting up (I hurt my leg climbing a mountain a few days prior) and I limped annoyingly the rest of the way to my gate.
I arrived at B1.
Las Vegas? Tempting… it’s been too long since I’ve climbed at Red Rocks…
There was no time for rock climbing daydreams, I had to focus my attention on finding my gate. I took longer in the gift shop than I meant to, so I called my husband for assistance and was redirected to gate B3.
San Diego? Rats. Now I’m going to have to talk to somebody at a desk.
But fortunately for me, I didn’t have to. Someone else was having the same problem and my eavesdropping skills are quite sharp these days. I was at the right gate. And I found a place to rest my knee by the window with a clear view of the mountains while I waited to board the plane.
To my left was a crowd of college age boys talking about, yes, girls. Girls, girls, girls, and places that don’t regularly ID you at the door. Oh to be young again… The kids are still saying “bro”, but I did pick up some new lingo…
To my right were two girls who I assumed were about my age speaking loudly and confidently about self respect, but most importantly, not letting others’ needs interfere with your happiness.
Hmm.
Straight ahead was a large family with noticeably calm and well dressed children, teens, and also an adult son wearing rhinestone crosses on the back pockets of his acid-washed jeans and stained white waffle knit shirt and a dirty backpack. I thought for a moment that maybe he was the black sheep of the family (there’s usually one) and then to my surprise he made a phone call trying to collect some records for one of his patients.
A doctor!
Sometimes my people watching reminds me of how judgmental I can be, even if I’m not necessarily thinking negatively about the people I’m observing. I tend to make rather rash assumptions in a split second. It’s good to be humbled in the area sometimes.
Delays and some sort of commotion at the front of the boarding line.
The flight crew made an announcement at some point. No snacks, just water for the 4.5 hour flight. I wasn’t hungry and still had a Chomps meat stick left over from my fishing trip, so I did not take the opportunity to grab more snacks (something I would regret later) and continued to sit and watch the line to board the plane not move an inch.
An alarm went off and a green light flashed. Two beeps then silence. And I mean silence. No one spoke for a good 10 seconds — something I’ve never experienced in an airport before. It was unsettling to say the least… But nothing came of it and eventually, 45 minutes after boarding began, I made it on the plane.
I was in the last group to board, so when I passed multiple empty rows nearing my seat I was hopeful that I would have all three seats to myself. But alas, there was a couple that had to get up and let me in to my window seat.
“He’s not even supposed to be here!”, the lady nervously laughed.
The man looked very uncomfortable and returned to his assigned seat, promising he would come back if he could. This left the lady in a panic.
“Don’t worry, babe, you have a book and a movie on your phone”, he reassured her.
At this point I felt like I needed to jump in because she was so visibly distraught.
“Does flying make you nervous?”, I said, having no plan whatsoever to help ease her anxiety if her answer had been yes.
“NO!”, she said, “I’m traveling with him, so like obviously I just want to be with him. Some people think that’s annoying... but I’m going to ask people to switch seats if I have to!”
After they shut the plane doors he came back and all was well until they started… talking.
I really did try to not listen and read my book, but I was a little disturbed by what I could clearly hear from their conversation and couldn’t pull my attention today.
The first thing that became clear was that the man was having an affair. He spoke often about his wife and kids. The lady had kids of her own as well, and had somewhat recently gotten herself out of an abusive relationship. But after a while, it became unclear if it actually was an affair. Because the man started telling the lady stories about his past, occasionally mentioning…
“But you were there with me,” he would say.
He was telling her stories about himself and his adventures with her. It was as if they went wayyy back… but were also just meeting for the first time — even asking first date questions. And then he referred to her as his wife.
I couldn’t help myself, I nonchalantly glanced over — no rings.
He mentioned he was tall but had short femur bones compared to most men, which she was surprised to hear. Then they spoke about becoming intimate… but not choosing to do that because he’s “not that kind of guy”… but they’ve also already done it… but when they do it for the first time he wants to fog up the back of a car from the 1950s. But no, that’s not enough; he wants to fog up the entire atmosphere.
Why, oh why, did I decide I was too cool to fly without headphones…
I was starting to get a headache. I ate my only snack less than an hour into the flight. I had a long way to go. The conversation flip-flopped from nonsensical to boring and normal topics like parenting struggles and feeling hungry and having to use the bathroom.
I thought at first maybe… drugs? But I ruled that out. The conversation felt more off than that, like they were following an intentionally absurd AI written script with hand gestures, expressive tones, and repeating sentences. As if they wrote it to prank people around them on the plane…
Oh no. What if they’re TikTok people?
I have to admit, at one point I was so confused I did pretend to be asleep so I could position my ear just right to hear more clearly (there was a brief time when they spoke in hushed tones, but it wasn’t interesting, just very normal). In the end, nothing made sense. I got off the plane hungry, befuddled, and weary with a pounding headache.
We landed late. I scurried to find my connecting flight hoping there would be no hiccups so I would have time to find food.
Another gate change.
I called my husband again to save myself some time (and potentially talking to a stranger), and grabbed a miserably soggy premade sandwich and some Cheez-It’s from a shop for $20 and barely made it in time to hop on my final flight.
Orlando to St. Louis
This time, someone was sitting in my seat. She blamed the lady beside her for sitting in her seat. The other lady looked startled and had to move two rows up causing the line on the plane to jam and back up, which did not please the crowd. I finally sat in my seat waiting patiently, maybe a little grumpily, for the plane to take off so I could ask for water so I could finally take some Excedrin for my headache. I was very tired and very much regretting not having purchased a Tylenol PM to knock me out for the flight.
And to think I used to consider myself crunchy.
A couple of 10 year-olds (probably) sat behind me — one playing video games and the other fascinated by everything she saw out the window.
“Chad. CHAD! Look at the cars on the highway!”
“Cool”
Her dad saw a need, and he joined in her enthusiasm. It was nice to have that kind of positivity around.
We landed very early. My husband knew this because he is so on top of things and thought to check on my flight. He was waiting for me as soon as I walked out.
Mr. Reliable.
I got in the car and he had a can of Dr. Pepper in my cup holder.
I married an angel.
We arrived home around 12:30 a.m. after 13 hours of planes, airports, and the general public. Like clockwork, my 3 year-old had woken up for her regular night waking and was grinning ear to ear to see that Mama was finally home.