Observations From Concourse E

On the way back home from Americuh in January, I had almost two hours of airport euphoria. Sitting in our airline's lounge in Chicago with one kid snoring and the other plopped empty-eyed and cherub-faced in front of a movie, I had nothing pressing to do. At all. Usually people complain about layovers but I couldn't have been more gleeful at the prospect of having no house to clean, no dogs to walk, no phone calls to make, nothing to schedule, no one to feed, no one to need me, nothing to do at all, save for making repeated trips between the free lattes and the magazine rack.

Here's the thing about airport lounges: 

• A third of the people are men who look downright pissed that women are and cigars aren't allowed in. Picture haughty laughter rolling out of meaty jowls, over chestnut-colored beverages, and onto oversized bellies in ill-fitting suits. 

• Twenty-five percent look like Steve Jobs doppelgängers. 

• Fifteen percent are clinging around the bar appearing to attempt meaningful convos with strangers (read: hooking up). 

• Five percent are trying to be inconspicuous about shoving individually wrapped shortbreads into their pockets, and one old guy keeps yelling into his phone, "We're at the club, by the bar. BY THE BAR! AT THE CLUB!" I couldn't tell if he actually knew where he was, or if he was having a nostalgic flashback to his rave days. 

• The remaining handful are nose-deep in their various technologies, tweeting and texting and typing and swiping and sniping and selling and buying and blogging and bidding, pretending they aren't in an actual room with actual people. I get it. Alone time is rare. People can be tiresome. But, Siri, she's irresistible. Funny. Knows when to quit. Can be turned off. 

Roll how you roll, friends. Just know that at an airport, someone's probably taking notes. 

xxx+o,

Jess