The Airport Experience and Rant...

The Airport

Dogma:

LOKI

(looks around)

Now here's what I don't get about you: why do you

feel the need to come here all the time?

BARTLEBY

(off travelers)

I like to watch. This is humanity at it's best.

Look at them.

A reunited FAMILY share a group hug and move on, making way for two young LOVERS

to embrace and kiss passionately.

OC BARTLEBY

All that tension, all that anger and mistrust,

forgotten for one perfect moment when they come

off that plane. See those two? The guy doesn't

even know that the girl cheated on him while he

was away.

OC LOKI

She did?

Bartleby and Loki continue to watch the arrivals.

BARTLEBY

Uh-huh. Twice. But it doesn't matter at this

moment because they're both so relieved to be with

one another. I like that. I just wish they could

all feel that way more often.

LOKI

Maybe if someone gave them free bags of peanuts

more often they would. Now what was so friggin'

important that I had to miss cartoons this

morning? If it was to share in your half-assed

obsessions with Hallmark moments, I'm going to

slug you.

Doug’s version. While I am a big fan of the movie Dogma, especially how it manages the absurdity of religion with it being real (in the movie) I can’t relate to this scene in real life. Sure, I laughed as Damon and Affleck have this exchange but instead of compassion I see tension and screaming children along with an in person study of the obesity problem in America. Spending thousands of dollars on studies of whether America has an obesity problem is unnecessary, very unnecessary. Just go to the airport, sit on a plane, walk through any terminal in the U.S. and you will see people that make me (and hopefully you) cringe.

The people staring at me as I write this weigh a combined 1,453 pounds. Here’s the sad part, there’s only 4 people. I’m wondering which one will be sitting next to me on my flight from SLC to DC taking up more than there allotted space on my next flight. Sure, the airlines enacted a new policy forcing obese people to purchase an extra seat if they can’t keep themselves from oozing into the area I paid for but I’m pretty sure it’s never been enforced.

Unlike in Dogma where Afflec finds joy, peace and happiness in the airport, I find the it full of tension. Families fight as their departure time get’s closer and closer and they’re stuck in the security line. Children get antsy with anticipation of a vacation. Little do they know they will be stuck on a plane for 4 hours which feels like an eternity for any boy (trust me! It still feels like an eternity and I’m 25).

On the first leg of my journey to DC via Boise, ID to SLC I was lucky enough to sit next to some coked out aviator glasses wearing, non stop talking maniac (sure he wasn’t encroaching on my space but he made up for it through his incessant talking). I was forced to put on headphones mid sentence for him to get the clue that I was no longer interested in his white trash sister (how HE referred to her). But after learning that she lives in a trailer with 2 children from different guys and twins on the way, I’m pretty sure I could come to that same conclusion. Oh, and she receives food stamps…awesome! Icing on the cake for that winner of a woman and society. Everyone, pat yourself on the back for taking care of this woman and her family. We deserve a little positive reinforcement for what we DO for people sometimes instead of only hearing about what we are not doing.

Side note…staring at a young white kid with a baseball jersey that says “sacrifice” and a baseball cap with a giant money symbol in fake diamonds on the back. He’s sitting with his family; grandparents and all. My initial reaction is this, “Really? That’s what you decided to where today? Classy.”

Second side note…while staring at this family trying to figure them out the father started picked his nose. It makes more sense now.

Third side note…The SCL airport has more blond haired, blue-eyed people working at McDonalds than anywhere else in the world. Sweden might have more but I’ve never been there.

A woman with half her head shaved just walked by. I’m pretty sure she had a tattoo on her arm that said “Virgin” but it might have said “Vagina”. Awesome. can't really believe I wrote that but it's the truth and it made me laugh...

More to come later….