I spend a lot of time on the road.
And that’s the way I like it.
I get antsy if I sit around the office for too long.
And although she wouldn’t admit it, I suspect my wife’s happy to get rid of me for a few days.
I get that.
Air travel has never lost its novelty for me.
Yes, there’s such a thing as too much, particularly when you’re crossing multiple time zones.
But rare is the trip in which I don’t get a spring in my step when I’m walking through the airport.
It’s the grown-up version of cruising the mall.
The whole vibe is so . . . chic.
I mean, in some places, you can buy a Rolex, for Chrissakes.
Even though there exists no recorded case in which a person actually bought a Rolex at an airport.
But you could.
And I love those duty-free stores that reek of Dior perfume and have entire rows of Toblerone chocolates.
I’ve never spent a dime in one.
But I’ve lingered in several, in a variety of countries, to pass many a layover.
And what about those ubiquitous Hudson News stores?
They’re fantastic for getting caught up on the current bestseller list and to see which celebrities have new memoirs out.
I’ve never bought or read any of them.
But I have bought the bags of mixed nuts displayed next to them, priced five times higher than those you’d find at your local grocery store.
Throw in a bottle of Perrier, and you can pay the same price you would for a decent dinner out.
It’s a very elevated experience.
Totally worth it.
I wouldn’t go so far as to travel in a suit.
Even though I do enjoy those ads from the old Life magazines that depict men and women sitting on planes in their Sunday best.
My go-to travel uniform does include a deconstructed blazer, but mostly for practical reasons.
I like all the pockets.
Most people dress for comfort these days.
Like the dude I saw in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport a while back in sweatpants and cowboy boots.
Doubtful he was jetting off to a board meeting.
But I suppose I shouldn’t assume.
Yes, I do enjoy the trappings of air travel.
Mostly because I have my routine dialed in.
I’ve figured out how to optimize every phase of the airport evolution to minimize inconvenience and pain.
I park in the garage right next to the terminal.
And pay a slightly ridiculous price to do so.
I do not check a bag, enabling me to skip the ticket counter on departure and baggage claim on arrival.
I use TSA Precheck to avoid the long line and cattle chute to which most travelers are subjected.
And I get to keep my shoes on, laptop in my bag, and toiletries in my carryon.
I maintain frequent flyer status on two airlines, putting me at the head of the line for boarding.
Which means there will be plenty of overhead bin space when I get on the plane.
And I won’t have to be one of those people at the very end of the boarding process, looking helplessly up and down the aisle for some place, any place, to put their luggage.
I always sit in the aisle, which makes it easy to stretch my legs from time to time.
And to get the hell out of my seat the very instant the seatbelt sign switches off when the plane hits the gate.
More generally, I’ve learned to adopt the behaviors and to extend the small courtesies that keep the whole process moving along efficiently.
Let’s face it, when you’re packed together in close quarters with that many people, you have to be nice.
Mostly.
We are dealing with humans, after all.
And humans, particularly those who don’t travel frequently, will inevitably find a way to fuck it all up.
Like those I recently observed during a weekend trip with my wife.
She likes to have plenty of clothing options when she travels, which requires a larger suitcase.
And that suitcase must be checked.
Which means we had to go to the ticket counter.
And there, we encountered a guy who, by any reasonable standard, was a complete disaster.
He looked like a character from a Sacha Baron Cohen movie.
He had a bunch of kids running around him and about seven oversized suitcases arranged on a luggage cart.
It was clear he was from out of town.
Way out of town.
He held his phone in his hand, with which he was having a conversation with someone in his native language.
It was on speaker, set to max volume, so anyone within a hundred feet could hear it blaring.
From the looks of it, the person on the other end of the line was coaching Borat through the check-in process.
The guy would yell into his phone, then confer with the ticket agent in broken English.
“So, I go to Newark first, yes?” he asked the agent.
That’s correct, she said. You’re connecting through Newark.
And then he’d shout into his phone again while his kids played an impromptu game of tag, colliding with other passengers in the check-in line.
All of this at five o’clock in the morning.
As the disaster unfolded, the other ticket agents began to abandon their posts to help, forcing the rest of us to wait in line.
It was infuriating.
By the time we finally got my wife’s bag checked, I was cooked.
She had never gotten around to signing up for TSA Precheck and would therefore have to stand in the long line, take off her shoes, and stand with her arms in the air stick-‘em-up-style in that body scanner.
A more supportive spouse would have joined her in line with the rest of the schmucks.
I was not such a spouse.
I didn’t have the patience for any of that and headed straight for TSA Precheck.
See you on the other side, I told her.
We reconnected a while later and made the short walk to get twenty-dollar airport smoothies for breakfast.
We then proceeded to the gate, where I sipped on my delicious Peanut Power Plus until boarding.
Without fail, there’s always a handful of people who fail to grasp the concept of boarding groups and approach the gate as soon as pre-boarding is called.
This time was no different.
A little old lady made her way to the front of the line and presented her boarding pass to the gate agent.
She was in for some bad news.
“Oh, no . . .” the agent said upon examining it. “You’re actually on the Miami flight. This one’s going to Atlanta.”
And, unfortunately, the Miami flight had already finished boarding, and the gate had been closed.
The little old lady was not getting on that plane.
She looked at the agent, bewildered.
Poor thing.
Anyway.
In my one act of chivalry, I gave up my aisle seat for my wife and took the middle one.
This would more easily facilitate her getting up to use the lavatory, which she typically does about nine times during a flight.
Both our outbound and return legs proceeded smoothly.
I managed to keep my usual impatience with my fellow travelers in check.
Until we got home.
At the baggage claim, I observed an annoying phenomenon.
People lose all sense of decorum the moment they spot their bag on the conveyor.
They will mindlessly hip-check and shove aside anyone in their way as they move to retrieve their goddamn suitcases.
When I see such a thing happening, I stand my ground.
If someone wants me to move, I expect them to ask.
“There it is, Jackson! Go get it!” the mom said to her kid.
She’d dispatched him, like a golden retriever, to fetch her suitcase.
The kid, about twelve years old, made a beeline for it, brushing against me as he passed.
And then he hauled it off the conveyor and swung it around right in front of me to carry it back to his doting mother.
As he did so, he gave me a look that said, “Aren’t you going to move?”
And I, in turn, gave him a look back that said, “Sure, kid. All you have to do is say ‘Excuse me’.”
Of course, he didn’t.
So I just stood there.
Then he came right at me, nearly taking out my right knee with mommy’s overweight suitcase in the process.
The little shit.
I suppose I should say the democratization of air travel over the past few decades has been a good thing.
More people are able to stay better connected with friends and family across cities, countries, and continents.
Yeah, I should say that.
But I won’t.
Because it’s a lie.
A complete,
Boldface,
Capital L,
Fucking
Lie.