It's Always Sunny in Southern Florida

I travelled to Southern Florida for work last week. Southern Florida. Sigh. The problem with Southern Florida is that its airports are chock full of children and ancients, (children heading to and from Disney World, and the ancients to and from seeing their children). Children and ancients tend to move e-v-e-r s-o s-l-o-w-l-y through airport walkways and escalators, taking up the entire width naturally. Not only that, they ask an inordinate amount of questions at ticket counters. The only truly valid question at a ticket counter is: Can I have my ticket? But children and ancients ask things like: is my flight on time, where is my gate, how long is my layover at my destination, where is the bathroom, what kind of plane am I flying, etc etc. all of which can be found on their ticket or on a monitor.

And don’t get me started on going through security. The oldies, with their aluminum canes and wheelchairs, would be difficult enough except that it never occurs to the blue hairs to take off their 75 pounds of costume jewelry and it never occurs to the old coots to take the $175 of spare change out of their pockets or their iron horseshoe belt buckles off. When travelling to or from Southern Florida, go ahead and give yourself an extra 45 minutes to get from curb to gate. Last week, once I finally got on my plane, one old guy chose that opportunity to check the level on his oxygen tank. Turns out, there wasn’t enough oxygen to last him the flight. So another oxygen tank had to be procured, apparently in Arkansas given the hour and a half it took to get it on the plane.

But other than an early death, I suppose becoming old lays in wait for us all, so I suppose I should show a little more patience. Pretty soon, I’ll be the one holding up lines, wielding an aluminum cane while asking innumerable inane questions at the ticket counter.