People watching at the airport is almost as much fun as at the State Fair – if you’re not stressing out.  I take a page from my mother’s playbook and always get to the airport with way too much time so I’m not usually too worried about time in the TSA line. 

There was a pretty long line on Saturday so there was plenty to watch.  The most interesting was the young couple in front of me.  When I first noticed them, the young man was wearing a fairly large, stuffed backpack and handling a big carry-on as well.  The young woman was unencumbered.  Before I had a chance to process that, she tried to take over carry-on duty.  He wouldn’t let go of the bag.  She was mad.  She ripped it out of his hands and if looks could kill, he would have been a goner.  Then he made two really bad mistakes.  First he tried to take the bag back and when she spoke to him in a stern voice, he smiled.  I wanted to say “ooh, buddy, bad move” but I didn’t need to.  She blasted him and they didn’t speak for  minutes until they got right up to the TSA desk.  I didn’t see them again.

Our plane wasn’t at the gate on time – late from its last stop I assume.  There was a red-haired woman who was just freaking out about this.  Not enough to get security called on her, but enough that all of us in the waiting area heard every word.  She somehow seemed to think that the gate agent could magically make a plane appear.  After venting her spleen she wandered off; I didn’t see her come back.  There weren’t any other flights that were leaving any time around the time of our flight so I don’t know what she did.  Maybe she had a couple of stiff drinks and was the last one onto the plane?

Of course when the plane did come and we were all loaded, the pilot made an announcement about some outside door flap being frozen.  Twenty minutes they said, which is airline speak for “at least an hour”.    We were going to St. Louis, so I’m guessing from the flurry of panicked phone calls, there were quite a few people with connecting flights.  The woman in front of me was positively melting down about it.  I wasn’t connecting although my sibling gathering was planned for that afternoon.  No meltdown from me. 

We made most of the hour up in the air so I was in time for the sibling gathering but not enough time to stop at the deli to pick anything up for the party!

How do you like to pass the time while waiting?