No matter how many coffee shops, boutiques, gastropubs, or bars they put in, airports will always be clinical, emotionless voids that on some level (subconscious or not) depress us. Maybe you love airports. Maybe you think they are exciting gates to the different worldly realms you are about to travel to, and you don’t mind them one bit. They are your adventurous beginnings.
But for the most part, I think airports fill us with a sense of indescribable dread and unease.
Chuck Klosterman, in his book Killing Yourself to Live, describes airports most brilliantly because Chuck Klosterman is insanely brilliant so there you go. He writes:
“There are moments when I feel like I’m dead. This is especially true when I’m in airports. Anytime I’m in a foreign place with lots of strangers who all share an identical (yet completely unrelated) purpose, I start to think I’m in purgatory. …This hypothesis [is] especially clear inside any airport. It’s like a warehouse full of dead people rushing from gate to gate to gate.”
Maybe that’s what it is – airports are a collective limbo.
Conspiracy metaphors aside, even people who love flying despise airports. Airports are environments that naturally induce stress: The long lines, baggage claim, security, taking off your shoes, the random pat-downs, the full body scans that essentially allow someone to see you ass naked, the flight delays, the guy sitting next to you who looks nervous and keeps twitching, the endless waiting. (Anxious yet?)
Basically, airports are the worst and they bring the worst out of us. Here are the terrible people we become when we’re in them:
1. The person who gets a little too turnt
Since airports naturally make people unhappy and nervous, of course they hit up the bar. We all do. I mean, what else are we supposed to do for so many hours? Read a book? Right. But then two glasses of wine turn into four, and at this point, we’re stumbling into our gate like hot messes, tweeting, “drnk @ da airport this shuld be fun,” and passing out on our tray table. Not a bad way to travel, but let’s not be drunk assholes either.
2. The person who hoards all the magazines
For those of you who treat airport time as ~*~me time~*~, I totally approve. Let's make the best of these terrible times. Do you. Buy all the fashion magazines you haven’t had time to read. That Cosmo issue that’s all, “Here are 708237 sex positions you should try in a pool full of Tapioca pudding.”
3. The person who bows down to the Xanax gods
You pop two 1mg Xanies and wait for the universe to bloom into one giant, therapeutic flower that lets you know everything is going to be okay, and even if this plane crashes, you shouldn’t even care because we’re all dying anyway. Xanax is amazing because it truly converts your worst fears into apathy. Life will be good. In like thirty minutes.
4. The person who saw Final Destination the night before
The signs are everywhere: Your flight number has three 6s in it; There are too many old people at your gate, and we all know if there WAS a god, he would put more priority and care into saving babies; You were almost late because you went through the wrong security line; Your plane pulls up and it looks haggard, rusty, and generally beat as hell. In short, you are doomed. You should take these signs and run.
5. The person who sits by the gate and refuses to move on the off chance the plane boards early and abandons you
Because that is what totally happens.
6. This person
A valiant effort here, but they could have at least covered their sleeves.
7. The person who buys a Nicolas Sparks novel
If you read Nicolas Sparks at an airport, are you really reading Nicolas Sparks at all? NAH.
8. The suspicious person
The guy on his phone is CLEARLY plotting something evil and terrible. You just know it. And why does that woman keep pacing back and forth? And why does the pilot who just passed you to board the plane look slightly drunk? Why is he laughing? He shouldn't be laughing. Flying a plane with like 300 people on it is nothing to joke about. He’s clearly too young to be flying your plane. That’s it. We’re all going to die.
Images: Getty Images; Giphy(7); Buzzfeed/Twitter
