John Y’s Musings from the Middle: My Ode to Airports

Airports are a great place to buy books you will never read. And would never have bought if you hadn’t been stuck in an airport.

Airports are places where you can shop for things you don’t need and would otherwise never consider buying –and pay twice as much for them as you would anywhere else if you did decide to buy them for some inexplicable reason. And yet buying these things in airports still makes you feel a little bit better on the inside.

Airports are in-between places. And no one likes to admit they are in an in-between place. Especially when they are at an in-between place that looks like an in-between place.

At the departing airport you see people who look just like you that you are leaving behind, and that makes you sad. But you also sense that the place you are going is going to be a better place –just by looking at the people in your airport. And that makes you happy.

But when you arrive at your destination you can tell that the new place isn’t going to live up to your expectations. And you can tell by looking at the people in the arriving airport —who also look just like you do. And that makes you sad again.

Airports are places where women don’t always wear make-up. And men don’t notice because men get to scratch and pick in otherwise off-limit areas when they are at airports. And secretly believe if they wear shorts, white socks and black dress shoes in an airport nobody can really see what they are wearing. Not even the women still wearing make-up.

Airports are a good place to pick up fashion tips if you want to know what looks good when you are exhausted, irritable, impatient, bored, sweaty and have just over-eaten —and are about to lose your cover as an asshole.

And airports are a terrible place if you want to plug in and recharge the things that normally help prevent you from being an asshole.

And airports, best of all, are a place you can feel almost invisible as you watch tens, hundreds, maybe even a thousand people pass by as you as you pass judgment on their most human follies and foibles and momentary inadequacies. While feeling certain that no one else in the airport would even consider doing that to you. As you quickly look down to make sure you aren’t one of those guys who is wearing shorts, white socks and dress shoes and thinks he’s invisible.