Mumble.

You spent all that time in the crummy St. Louis airport and we (Steph of steph.mooville.net and me of seshat.org) didn't get to meet you there. I was grumbling about it the first time and meant to say something about it, but forgot to, so it happened again.

Did you meet the creepy guy with the books on yoga and weird pseudoscientific stuff and whatever else, who calls out random questions to passersby when he's not explaining alien DNA to people he's caught in his trap? I've been to the airport maybe 10 times and he's ALWAYS there. No matter which airline I'm looking for, he's there. Maybe they're clones. Hm.

Anyway.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Answers

I'm just changing the title here to "Strange Airports" so we can all share stories of weird airport tales.

The first time I was in St. Louis I only had enough time to change planes. Yesterday I had a bit longer, but i'm terribly paranoid about missing flights. I ended up sitting on the floor charging my laptop battery while reading an entire issue of rolling stone cover to cover. i would check the clock every ten minutes.

I wouldn't have been any fun, I promise you.

-- Anonymous, May 22, 2000

Most of our bad airport experiences this weekend were in the local airport, but we did have two funny experiences at Denver International, each involving kids:

First, I was in the bathroom, and a woman went into the stall next to me with her (I eventually gathered) two small girls, maybe three and four. I was sort of, you know, doing my own thing and not paying attention, until the stall started shaking as the younger girl launched into a screaming, shaking hissy fit. I eventually gathered that the auto-flush toilet had scared her earlier, and now she was not getting on that thing for love nor money. Her mother offered to hold her, and she screamed: "No! Don't touch me! Not going on the potty!" To her credit, Mom stayed calm and tried to explain that she had to go before they got on the plane or she'd wet her pants, but the little girl was flat out terrified of the toilet that flushed automatically without anyone touching the knob.

Finally her sister mentioned that the toilets on the plane didn't flush automatically, so maybe they should just wait. Mom agreed that waiting was a good idea. I felt bad for Mom and for screaming little girl (hey, man, the first auto-flush toilet I encountered scared the bejeezus out of me, too), but I found the whole thing mighty hilarious.

Then later, as Jeremy and I were using the People Mover (tm) or whatever they call that moving sidewalk thing, we saw a little boy, about five or six, standing on the other side of the glass with his lips pressed against the moving hand rail. His lips were all smushed out and he was obviously just digging the vibration; he had this dreamy expression on his face that was just priceless.

We cracked up. Jeremy paused for a second and said, "Oh, the germs ... I'm never having kids," but I said, "Yeah, but the expression! He was blissed out."

Kids in airports are funny.

-- Anonymous, May 24, 2000

I once threw up on Bob Hope's shoes at LAX.

My grandmother was positively mortified (but really, what did she expect, lugging a gastrointestinally volatile toddler around?). Mr. Hope was rather nonplussed.

--wendy, no extra day

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000

Once my aunt and I were on a plane next to James Brown. I was only 7, so I had no idea who he was. I had spent the summer with my aunt and grandma in Indiana and she was moving to California to go to college. She had some weird-shaped box, I don't remember what was in it, but he kept asking, "What's in the box?" and trying to talk to us. I just thought he was a pervert.

-- Anonymous, May 25, 2000