This isn't Terminal, please leave me alone.
So tell me, what is it with stranger people always trying to talk to other stranger people in airports? I don’t really get it. Today I was in the Oakland Airport and I’m sitting on a bench and—well, okay, it wasn’t really a bench. Something in my brain wants me to explain that I was sort of doing a leaning-sitting move on more of a windowsill than a bench. So maybe it looked like I was trying to be talked to by my body language, which was not-quite-sitting, not-quite-standing. But it was almost boarding time, which is the only reason why I was sit-standing there anyway. But anyway, this kid—who’s got to be like eighteen years old—with sort of an awkward, lanky appearance which is spilling over into his persona starts chatting me up. His opening line is,
”So…are you headed back to LA, for school, or something?”
It didn’t seem very well-planned, if you ask me.
My response is,
“No, I just…live in LA.”
And his response is, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
And then he goes off on this long fucking rant about how he is from the bay, and he goes to LA because that’s where he can “play this thing” (as he taps the large box he’s lugging around; I guess I’m supposed to assume it’s an instrument and also maybe guess which instrument it is?). He’s doing a very good job of playing off the whole “I hate LA, but it’s a means to an end” thing. I know this spiel. Everyone at my college did it, too.
So then somehow this kid gets me to ask him if he actually lives in LA or what, because he’s being so ambiguous that I’m not really sure what he’s trying to say with it. He clarifies that he goes to “med school” there—which he says under his breath so maybe “med school” is his way of saying “I’m eighteen and an undergrad, but I’m pre-med.” Maybe he was actually older. Sometimes people think I’m younger than I am, too. Then he introduced himself to me. We shook hands. I was trying to display my disinterest in anything other than finishing my book and I think he caught on. He did ask if I had flown Southwest before, which seemed like a silly question. Is there really a person living on the west coast today who hasn’t at one point purchased a $79 ticket on Southwest for some impromptu weekend getaway? Yes, Andrew, I’m a frequent flier here at Greyhound of the Airways, thank you for asking.
Editor’s note: It’s been suggested that this post may have come off a little more cynical than planned. For the record, if you try to talk to me in an airport, I probably won’t secretly despise you and blog about it later. Maybe I was just in a less-than-great mood on that particular day.
