I almost went insane today. The Packers saved me. WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW. I also got sick of Yahoo's photos shit, so now I'm just going to stick with webshots. A summary of Christmas break is now in my December 2003 folder on my webshots page HERE.

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Itinerary:
6:00 am depart Milwaukee
8:55 am arrive Atlanta
12:55 pm depart Atlanta
3:30 pm arrive Boston

[note bene: my mom worked for a couple years as a stewardess for Lufthansa in the late 1960s]

There’s something amusing about flying with an airline like AirTran because you know that everyone you come into contact with would rather be working for a better airline (which is most others). And it’s normally pretty obvious why they’re not. The unattractive gate agents have slightly worse haircuts, the moussed-up stewardess is a little more out of her mind, and the pilots have the slightest hint of an inferiority complex as they tell you how grateful they are for flying with them on their puddle-jumper from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale.

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The weird part is that when I then talk to someone from a “good” airline (normally Midwest Airlines, nee Express), I have this bizarre respect for them—for some reason I start thinking, “Gate agent for fucking Midwest…wow, this woman really has her shit together in life.” And then I realize that they’re working at the airport on Sunday morning at 6 am. I’m normally never one to fuck with people I don’t know, but due to this strange sense of empathy, I like to ask them questions I know they know the answer to. Does my laptop bag count as a personal item or a carry-on item? Do I need to check in at the gate when I connect in Atlanta? What’s the square root of 21? (Personal item, no, and roughly 4.58) I feel like it brings us all a little closer together. Because if they feel like they’re helping me, then good for them, and if they feel like I’m a fucking idiot, then they can complain about how stupid all their customers are on their lunch break. And in the grand scheme of things, it’s better to do one of those than just be bored out your mind.

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Conversation I overheard as I grabbed some lunch at the Wendy’s in the Atlanta airport at 10:30 am:

Old dude: “What do ya got for breakfast?”
Late 20s-ish cashier: “Breakfast is over we’re serving lunch now.”
Old dude: “Can I still get breakfast?”
Late 20s-ish cashier: “No, we’re not serving breakfast anymore.”
Old dude: [brief pause in confusion]
Late 20s-ish cashier: “You can pick something from the lunch menu” [gestures up at menu]
Old dude: “Like what?”

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You pick up a lot of worldliness sitting in the Atlanta airport for hours on end. For instance, if you are late for your flight on AirTran, they will eventually announce at the gate that you have one minute left before they will give your seat to someone else. Don’t worry, you actually have about four minutes.

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The most hit or miss job at the airport has to be the electric cart driver. Sure, it looks like a good deal: you get to drive around a golf cart for a living, you can instantly curry favor with attractive women by offering them rides, and people appreciate it when you take them somewhere. But I bet if you talked to one those guys who do that all day, they’d tell you it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. At least a third of them probably quit after a day because the constant beeping of the thing drives them nuts (I imagine the good ones get into a zone and can block it out). Plus, people in airports are retarded. The drivers always have to yell for people to get out of the way in spite of the fact that their cart has a loud obnoxious beep. And the vast majority of the people you drive around are old people. Bummer.

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The classic faux pas with pregnant women (or more accurately, fat women) is obviously asking about a woman’s expected baby when she’s not pregnant. Not good. But I think an overlooked form of awkward moment is when you talk to someone who you’ve met before and they are obviously pregnant and you don’t say anything about it. I’ve done this twice in the past month.