Airports are weird. They’re tiny, fluorescent-lit microcosms of society, where people whose lives would never otherwise intersect, are forced together by a shared desire to leave. A woman dressed head-to-toe in Chanel, carrying a dog in a bag that costs more than most cars, stands shoulder-to-shoulder with someone who looks like they panic-packed from the rejected pile behind a Goodwill at 3 a.m.
There’s something about crossing the threshold into this microcosm that causes otherwise functional adults to completely lose their minds. Any shred of common sense they arrived with evaporates, and they begin behaving as though they’ve entered a foreign country where rules are unclear, time has no meaning, and shoes are suddenly optional. This creates a hard divide among the inhabitants into two distinct societies: those who know how to travel: The Know-Hows, and those who absolutely do not: The Know-Nots. There is no middle ground. No airport purgatory. You either understand the basics of airport etiquette, or you are actively ruining it for everyone else.
The Know-Hows don’t even attempt to hide their disdain for the Know-Nots, sighing audibly as the security line grinds to a halt for things like, “We can’t bring switchblades on a plane?” Understandable, if you’ve been cryogenically frozen since 1974. Your outfit supports this this theory.
Recently, I was standing in the security line at Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. I always book the first flight out, so there were only a handful of people waiting to be scanned in the TSA herding corral. I stood patiently with my boarding pass and license, when I suddenly wondered if I needed more caffeine to fully process what I was witnessing.
A woman decided that walking the 300 steps required by the security line was simply not for her. She first attempted to unclip the retractable belt stanchion, failed, and then moved on to plan B: under the barriers. Her overstuffed backpack hit everything but the lottery as she tried to duck beneath multiple rows lane dividers, dragging the designated belts behind her like a turtle who had just crossed the finish line but didn’t know it.
The belts snagged on her backpack and began pulling her backward, transforming her into a reluctant contestant in a field-day Bungee Run. She couldn’t understand why she wasn’t making forward progress until the stanchion posts toppled like dominoes, taking her down with them in a metallic cacophony that echoed through the terminal. And I watched it all unfold, powerless to look away from the slow, inevitable implosion of hubris, nylon webbing, and airport authority.
She could have been at her gate and halfway through her third game of Candy Crush by the time she finished untangling herself from her self-inflicted web of laziness. She was all straps and carry-on detritus while I moved on as any normal human would have, had they not left their common sense and phone in the Uber.
The larger the airport, the more obvious the divide becomes and the more unhinged the behavior. People having very loud speakerphone conversations, casually sharing information that would shock even Howard Stern. A parade of outfits that appear to have been looted from homeless encampments, smelling exactly as bad as they look. Parents herding exhausted, bored children like feral cats armed with juice boxes and Goldfish. If you’re not sprinting from one end of the concourse to the other, it’s a fascinating glimpse into human behavior. If you are sprinting, I hope you’re not doing it in six-inch heels and baggy sweatpants that keep falling down - but you do you.
In the end, airports are just temporary microcosms where calamity wears a giant sweatshirt that could double as a storm shelter, and has absolutely no idea how to pull up its boarding pass on its phone. For a few fluorescent-lit hours, Chanel dogs, feral children, Know-Hows, and Know-Nots all share the same zip code and sit in the least comfortable furniture created since the Iron Torture Chair. Some of us move through it efficiently, shoes off, liquids compliant, with plenty of time to get to our gate. Others attempt to outsmart the system, convinced rules are suggestions, shortcuts are earned, and security protocols are optional. And every so often, one of them drags half of TSA behind her like a turtle making terrible choices with full confidence and zero common sense.