Urban Thought Collective

“For those of you waiting to board flight 2448 with service to Dallas/Fort Worth, we have an update regarding your aircraft…there is a mechanical problem….there will be a delay of at least 3 hours…”

And they’re off! All of them, as if they were shot out of a cannon. You haven’t seen butts leap out of seats this fast since Bob Barker (or is it Drew Carey now?) last yelled “Come on Down!” You would’ve thought that they were giving away free tickets to Tahiti for the first 30 people that made it to the check-in counter at gate A12. Business travelers ran with the desperation of the people trying to catch that last flight out of Cuba as the revolution began after Michael Corleone infamously told Fredo, “I knew it was you!” in Godfather II. All except for me.

It started out like most other travel days. Well, maybe the beginning was a bit peculiar. As the sun peeked out above the horizon, I arrived at Long Term Parking, mentally preparing myself for the nail-biting pastime of waiting for the shuttle. As soon as I parked my car, there a shuttle was heading my way. It didn’t even stop at every stop along the way. I stepped into the terminal, boarding pass firmly in hand, and went straight to security. Without much delay, I strolled through and sauntered down to my gate. I grabbed a breakfast sandwich at Max’s and found a seat amongst the business literati.

Oh, the collection of characters in this group. The frat boys in suits on my right were bragging about their exploits on the golf course over the weekend. The executress on my left was barking instructions through her Bluetooth headset while rap-tapping away on her Blackberry. Behind me, the scourge of all business travelers, a couple of rambunctious and screaming toddlers, gave their parents fits. “He made me drop my donut!” whined one of them. “I was playing with it first,” the other said defiantly as their mother wished that Calgon would take her away, and all of us sent one up to the Big Guy, praying that this dynamic duo would not be sitting in the same half of the plane as we were.

As I polished off my breakfast, a woman dressed out of sorts with her age strolled over and took her place between the pay phones directly across from me. Her furry, white bell-topped Kangol covered most of the short dark hair that framed her face. Besides her very J-Lo/Gwen Stefani, neo-Madonna, suburban-mainstream-cross-over hip-hop get-up, she would’ve otherwise been quite forgettable until she started a rather peculiar stretching routine.

Left hand on the phone booth, right leg extended to the side, almost waist high. Right hand on the phone booth, left leg extended waist-high to the side. Perhaps she was a ballet dancer or something. Right leg above her eye-level. Then rested on the phone, leaning forward. Now nose to right knee. Left leg …eye-level…nose to knee. Was she serious? It’s not often that you see adults putting their feet all over things in public, as if it were their own personal jungle gym. Perhaps she wasn’t operating with a full deck. Maybe she was off her meds and wasn’t fully aware of where exactly it was that she was. I mean, c’mon.

Apparently circus girl had been a world class sprinter before being institutionalized, because she was among the front runners for the counter after the fateful announcement. You should’ve heard all of the commotion. It sounded like the pit at the NASDAQ just before quitting time on speculation of a Fortune 500 earnings announcement. Complete with bad information, shameless plugs, and gloom and doom prognosticators. The trash talk was downright BET Black Poker Stars:

“I hear there’s a 9:18am flight?” (CALL)

“United has a 10 AM through Denver that might get you there on time,…” (BLUFF)

It was hilarious. All of the worst elements of humanity come out during a crisis. Even Circus Girl, Prozac all worn off, was not immune to the madness. A Lucky Charms Leprechaun of a man tried to cut in front of her in the line and it was on.

“I was here first, you’ll have to go to the back,” she barked defiantly, pointing to the end of the line which now stretched south just shy of Monterey County. “Pardon me, can you re-book me on the flight through Chicago?” said Lucky, ignoring Circus Girl, and directing his statement toward Margaret the gate agent, who bore a striking resemblance to Martha Stewart.

“Ma’am…he’s cutting in line!” said Circus Girl, raising her voice considerably for emphasis. “He’s cutting in line…can you believe this?!?!” Rabble roused Circus Girl, turning to the folks behind her in line. “Ma’am I have a very important meeting this afternoon that I HAVE to get to, so he needs to get out of my way, and I want you to note for the record that he’s cutting!”

“MOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!”

And we all thought that the two toddlers would be providing all of Flight 2448’s entertainment on this fine morning. With the patience and intestinal fortitude of Louis Winthorp and Billy Ray Valentine at the New York Stock Exchange, Crop Report in hand, I reached into my pocket to dial American Airlines Platinum Members Customer Service.

Before the gate agent had finished her sentence about the flight delay, I had a representative on the line booking me on a flight that would leave 45 minutes later out of A10. I hung around for a few more minutes to see if Jerry Springer’s bouncers were going to emerge from behind the door at gate A12 to keep Circus Girl from kicking the blue hearts and yellow moons out of Lucky.

At last, I queued up the iPod to Dave Brubeck’s Take 5, put on my Quiet Comfort 3’s, gathered my things and walked past the riot to another comfortable gate-side seat at A10.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer His blog “Souffles in Saigon” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.