Airport Etiquette

I haven't been here in awhile due to some health issues but during a brief stint in Florida, I wrote this on a layover.  I hope you enjoy.

Airport Etiquette

What is it about airports that make people think they are almost as anonymous as being their online, invisible selves?  Sitting here at the ever prestigious, Chili’s Too in the Detroit Airport, eating what resembles real huevos rancheros – although they have the rubbery consistency of what I would imagine powdered eggs would be if I’d ever had them – I look up and see four men sitting in a booth, two down from mine.  One man is about 30 years old. "Thirty" has dead fish eyes that don’t blink.  

He unabashedly stares at me. 

I’m attempting to delicately eat these cold, previously melted, cheesed atop Army rationed eggs with cold liquid oozing out of the bottom, soggifying the tortilla underneath.  

I look up.

                                   Thirty’s dead eye stare is piercing my luscious egg experience. 

I give him a not-so-subtle annoyed, yet questioning, look and go back to attempting to figure out how to shovel this in. I’m hungry, my blood sugar is dropping and I need protein.  In the words of a friend, I will eat the crap they give me right now for the sake of sparing my sweet waitress from having to scrape my sorry ass off the floor after fainting and hearing my last pre-conscious words, “pleeeeease….powdered…..eggggggssss…..bllllleeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh….”

I’m writing, I’m soaking in the Chili’s ambience, I’m forgetting there is a straw in my water. Every time I sip out of my glass I poke myself in the face with it.  I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

Yep.

Dead fish eye Thirty is staring at me.  He doesn’t even attempt to look away.  I look behind me because I think to myself, “You are so arrogant.  Thirty is looking out the window behind you. (I’m sitting against a wall)…Maybe there’s a wonderful Monet or Renoir that’s capturing his attention! (It’s hotel art. No one but a sociopath likes hotel art.)  Okay..okay…yes, I want to feel arrogance for a dead eyed, thirty-something, potential, wanna-be/accomplished serial killer…”  If he looked anything like Dexter, 

I’d let him stare at me all day long.  

Dead eyes and all.

Over an hour in the booth, I’m calling folks, writing, facebooking (which I hear is a verb so no grammar police on me and yes, you know. Who. You. Are.), wondering if said ‘food’ will stay in my digestive track,  people watching (yes but not in a creepy way, more like people glancing) and I look over at Thirty.

Really?  I mean, really?  Should I start shoveling in everything on my plate, chew it at sugar rush speed and open my mouth like a 3-year old showing off their pride and joy of how well they can mash it all up?  Hmmm…perhaps stick out my tongue? Nonono, he could take that as flirting… how about some obscene finger gesture?  No, definitely not me. Too obvious.  Oh I know!  Lick my lips suggestively, wink and grab my breasts!! Subtle, gets the point across that he’s the obvious one…yeah, I like it. 

Wait! He’s exiting the booth with his comrades.  Dammit!  No chance to degrade myself today.  Oh well. I have a 4 hour layover. It’s Detroit.  I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities.