HEY, WHERE’S THE AIRLINE?

Last night I drove to JFK International Airport to collect Son #1 who was arriving for the Christmas Holiday. Leaving TLW (The Little Woman) behind, I set off on my assigned task and drove for an hour an ten minutes into the darkness and cold of night. Turning off the JFK Expressway, and following all the signs, I was greeted by an ugly sight! There before me lay the longest traffic tie-up in airport history, three lanes of stopped cars, growing longer as the only sign of movement! Of course I needed to get over to the left and was all the way over to the right, the lane I wanted cut off from the right and middle lanes less than a quarter mile up ahead. Maneuvering and inching, I finally made it over in enough time to make the split and find the parking lot.

Crossing the arrival traffic to the terminal, I walk in and do not see the airline #1 Son is supposed to arrive on, and ask a security guard, a woman, where American West was. She inquires: “Arrival or departure?” I respond: “Arrival” she says: ”Stand here.” No signs, no indications, no nothing!

With some time on my hands, I decided to do my favorite thing in the world, people watch. I look someone over and try to image what he or she does for a living. Among the crowd of arrivals are people holding homemade, makeshift signs with last names on the signs, large enough for someone else to recognize and respond. These people holding these signs were limo drivers, on the job. I think some of the signs seemed a little strange. For instance: one sign looked like a frat house prank; “Parsley,” another was; “Lynch” and I thought that if he carried that one around long enough, someone would surely take him up on it.

Standing in the one of many gateways to the greatest city on earth was this fellow wearing a Kansas City Royals baseball cap, and looked very out of place with all the Yankee and Met caps floating by. Who would want to root for a team that hasn’t won anything in many years, and when they did play in a World Series, against the St. Louis Cardinals, had to pay to get into the park in St. Louis!

But my favorite sign was one held by a chubby little lady, in jeans so tight that she looked like she painted them on that stated: “Karen’s Mum.” If I were Karen’s friend, I’d hail a taxi.