Orange hands and other hazards of travel

I took a week off to head northwest to Seattle for a conference. I went out by myself (my hubbie arrived two days later). Traveling by yourself, you tend to be more aware of your surroundings and the drama in them.

I took the bus to the airport. The last stop before the airport picked up several airport employees. John, the fuel handler trainer sat in the seat across the aisle from me. The first call on his cell phone was to Rick - a new guy whom he apparently forgot his name but was training him. They discussed fuel stuff and the day's schedule for training. Then there was a long pause on John's end with a lot of uh-huhs. Then he said "yeah - I've been through that but mine was 12 years, not three." More uh-huhs. Then he says, "well ... I would put her stuff out on the front lawn and say goodbye. You got to cut your losses, man." Who knew Dr Phil was masquarading as a big, burly manly fuel handler man on the airport bus?

I love to travel to Washington and I love Frontier airlines. However the Seattle gate is at the end of the A councourse where about 500 gates are all stuffed in a corner. It's always a mad house. But fun to listen to the gate people try to steal the overhead paging system from one another.

"Attention Flight 844 to Sea..." interupted by "Last call for passengers on flight 63...." interupted by "Missus Pigg, Missus Ima Pigg, please come to a white paging telephone." Then they start to get testy and you hear "Att ... las... missus... 844 ... final... gate... grrrrr..."

As I am sitting reading the same sentence in my book over and over (ADD on overload), a mom and her 2-year-old sit down next to me. I am a kid magnet. Usually the ones with boogers, drool, dirt on their shoes. She's cute but is practically in my lap. She gets her dirty shoes on my skirt. I move farther to the right edge of the seat. Then mom hands her a bag of cheetos. This woman gets high marks in my book (not!). I stand up. She looks at me and I feel I have to say something. "Uhm - I'd rather not have orange hands touch me..." and I wander off to settle between a sleeping Japanese business man and a nicely dressed older couple - neither of whom have cheetos or boogers all over them.

Luckily when I board the plane - mom and the orange kid are no where in sight.

My friend Jospeh and his wife Ariela once visited Denver from their home country Israel. Ariela is a very talented artist. So one of the places I took them was the Denver Art Museum. Joseph got a kick out of the Native American area but then was done. He headed back downstairs to the couch by the front door. He finds observing people more fun than art. I like art but he's right on the people watching.

The gate I was facing said "Philadelphia" on the marquee. However, the plane at that gate was going to Las Vegas. It was very amusing to watch people run at full speed stop about 20 feet from the gate person and just look stupified. She would say "Vegas?" and they would nod. She would gesture them over. In the midst of the paging wars - you would hear her say "Flight 666 (or whatever it was) is now boarding at gate 56." So it was funny to watch people given those instructions but be faced with accidentally going to Philadelphia instead. Most of them were likely already liquored up for Vegas (baby).

However - I wondered about the gate people. I mean, really. How hard is it to type on the little keyboard and make the marquee say Las Vegas? But that would take the fun out of it, now wouldn't it?