scenes from the airport
Airports are such interesting places.
One time I was running to catch a flight, yes, literally running through the airport and some of the airport workers pointed at me and laughed. Can you blame them? I had the thought to flip them off as I hurried to the security line, but I was so frantic, heart pounding, to make my plane on time that I decided against it. Later I realized that watching someone run through the airport might actually be sort of funny.
In airports there are talkers and keep-to-yourself-ers. Most people tend to stand in lines and sit in seats preferring to ignore the blood-pumping, breathing, lump of flesh in the next seat over. Despite the fact that airports are a center of human transportation and in large groups we board sleek aircrafts together, spend hours in the same confined space, and congregate around the spinning baggage claims together, airports are very solitary places.
And then, of course, there are the talkers. These are special souls who create human connections in airports. Welcome or unwelcome, they invite themselves into your lives, they strike up conversations about places and jobs, they offer you food from their purses and bags, they comment on your attire and ask you to do favors for them.
The talkers I met at the airport today were an adorable old couple headed to Portland to visit family. The old man commented on my Toms, telling me I had chosen well for the shoe removal ceremony at the security station. The old woman talked of the staggering of spring breaks in schools this year and somehow we ended up talking about the potential government shutdown. You never know what you are going to get with a talker. Once I got invited to dinner by a Filipino talker sitting near me on a plane.
The most interesting part of the talker encounter is leaving that person, walking away forever, never to make contact again. Do you say goodbye or simply walk away? Do you walk with them to the baggage claim or stop at the bathroom to avoid such walk? Do you thank them for the conversation, tell them how nice it was to meet them? Do you ask their name or just smile at the nameless face you shared a few minutes of your life with? Are there social rules for these situations and, if there are, do talkers even prescribe to those social rules?
One time I was running to catch a flight, yes, literally running through the airport and some of the airport workers pointed at me and laughed. Can you blame them? I had the thought to flip them off as I hurried to the security line, but I was so frantic, heart pounding, to make my plane on time that I decided against it. Later I realized that watching someone run through the airport might actually be sort of funny.
In airports there are talkers and keep-to-yourself-ers. Most people tend to stand in lines and sit in seats preferring to ignore the blood-pumping, breathing, lump of flesh in the next seat over. Despite the fact that airports are a center of human transportation and in large groups we board sleek aircrafts together, spend hours in the same confined space, and congregate around the spinning baggage claims together, airports are very solitary places.
And then, of course, there are the talkers. These are special souls who create human connections in airports. Welcome or unwelcome, they invite themselves into your lives, they strike up conversations about places and jobs, they offer you food from their purses and bags, they comment on your attire and ask you to do favors for them.
The talkers I met at the airport today were an adorable old couple headed to Portland to visit family. The old man commented on my Toms, telling me I had chosen well for the shoe removal ceremony at the security station. The old woman talked of the staggering of spring breaks in schools this year and somehow we ended up talking about the potential government shutdown. You never know what you are going to get with a talker. Once I got invited to dinner by a Filipino talker sitting near me on a plane.
The most interesting part of the talker encounter is leaving that person, walking away forever, never to make contact again. Do you say goodbye or simply walk away? Do you walk with them to the baggage claim or stop at the bathroom to avoid such walk? Do you thank them for the conversation, tell them how nice it was to meet them? Do you ask their name or just smile at the nameless face you shared a few minutes of your life with? Are there social rules for these situations and, if there are, do talkers even prescribe to those social rules?
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