The airport concourse is a parade of travelers clad in flips flops, sweatpants, fleeces, and plushy neck pillows that call to mind a resort-wear version of an Elizabethan ruff; so much synthetic fabric that you might imagine the airplanes on the runway are borne aloft by static electricity.
At the departure gate, a young woman in full-body pink polyester is sprawled across three seats, encircled by her personal technology devices, a fast-food feast, and a mountain-range of carry-on luggage. She might as well be at home curled up on her own couch for all she cares about her surroundings. I could never feel comfortable being as comfortable as she so evidently is. In fact, I'm only that relaxed when asleep in my bed at night, and even then I'm probably having an anxiety dream.
Later, in Row Z of the plane, I'm squashed in beside a pungent man who's obviously spent a five-hour layover in the airport bar. He's dressed in a suit and tie but smells like he bathed in a barrel of beer then toweled himself dry with a pack of Doritos. Clearly, my lifetime ambition should have been to buy a private jet. Alas, it's too late for that now.
