I had the good fortune this past Saturday to miss the Concord Trailways bus from Logan Airport by five minutes.
As my plane pulled in at 11:18 in the morning, I held my breath, muttering resentfully about the 15-minute delay the flight had earlier that day. But I would still make it; I was prepared to shove and pummel whatever families, flight attendants, and elderly people were necessary. I would sprint through the terminals and climb into that mysterious tunnel with the ominous red light the baggage comes out of and demand that they hand over my red rolling suitcase.
But having tried to hoist my leg over the couple cuddling next to me, only to find myself with my crotch hovering mere inches above the gentleman's wristwatch and my ankle turning the volume on the woman's headphones up to a level I'm surprised didn't turn her hair blond, I crouched back into my seat. There was no rush; looking dolefully at the neighboring wristwatch (the use of which I now felt entitled to), it was clear that there would be no heroic bus-catch.
So here comes the nauseatingly grim question that all travelers have had to grapple with at one point or another: What does one do for five hours in an airport?
Granted, I'm sure that many people, and many Bowdoin students, have had far worse and longer times in airports than this. And after five hours of Dunkin' Donuts, "InStyle," toddlers with tantrums, more Dunkin' Donuts, and rolling around a behemoth of a suitcase back and forth, the fact that these people still continue to leave their homes is outrageous to me.
The most obvious answer to any strandee would be to take out your homework. But when you've just ingested a large coffee, a grande mocha, and a chocolate muffin, the thought of settling into a reading of "Moby Dick" is kind of like trying to write a letter to your grandmother on speed.
So, with less than three hours of sleep but enough caffeine in my veins to light up the Eiffel Tower for a week, I decided this was the most opportune time imaginable to make some friends.
"Oh look how little she is!!!"
When someone says this to my child someday in the future, I'm going to reply with a can of Mace. This woman didn't (which is fortunate, because God knows how that would've mixed with the caffeine seizure), but she gave me a strained look of friendliness that implied, "Yes, they usually come out that way." I stood unphased, though: "How old is she?"
"Oh, just a couple of months, now," was the uncomfortably high-pitched response, and then ohmygodthereishernipple.
Breast-feeding has got to be the most ingenious way to get rid of someone you don't want around. Just a few buttons slyly done away with, and voila! Your child-gaping creep (in this case, myself) is suddenly speechless and quietly gets up and rolls away. It's not that I don't hold a certain amount of sensitivity to the intimacy of feeding your child au naturel, but the unexpected sight of a total stranger's matronly bosom is enough to take the edge off anyone's caffeine buzz.
With a lesson learned and an image engrained, I wandered over to the magazine station, where I thoughtfully debated between "The New Yorker" and "The Economist." Leaving the stand with my copy of "Vogue", I sat down next to two airport employees, who were avidly watching women walk in and out of the terminals, making remarks like, "Look! Look! Look! Dang, man! Look!"
I settled into people-watching with these two, involving myself in their conversation in my head: "Yeah, but I'll bet she's got no sense of humor." It's amazing what eavesdropping can do to make the hours fly by. Because, looking at the clock, I realized that it was time to go outside and wait for the bus.
While my story is a rather anti-epic one, I learned many lessons. For one, coffee is to be taken in quantities less than that of your own body weight. Also, flashing is an effective tool in repelling pests. And finally, don't let a temporary moment of discomfort stand in the way of catching a bus. Because there's absolutely nothing to be done in an airport for five hours.