The Usual Suspects: Airport Edition

This past weekend, I traveled to Nashville for UtopYA Con 2012 (which was AWE-some, by the way) and, while spending excess amounts of time at the airport, I decided to jot down the typical characters you run into around your flight gate.

Here goes.

The Neck Breather: This is the guy that stands so close behind you in the security line that his breath dampens your neck. There are only two peeps who are allowed to breathe on my neck:

Hot guys (for obvious reasons--hello, sexy tingles)

And dragons.

Dragons get a free pass because they are both mythical and terrifying. You don't want to tick off an airport dragon. Clearly, if they are at the airport, their awesome reptilian wings are broken which probably means they're in a bad mood.



The Creepy Compliment Guy: Listen, just because you're standing in line behind me for 45+ minutes doesn't mean we need to strike up a friendship. "You have nice skin" might sound harmless to you, but to me it screams, "Hey wanna come visit my basement of horrors after I follow you around whatever distant city you're traveling to in the hopes of making a blanket out of your skin?"

Uh, no.

Don't chat me up. Just wait in line in silent torment like the rest of us and stop creeping people out.

The Disgruntled Commentator: This is the guy that feels the need to give a play-by-play of everything that's happening around him delaying his race to the boarding gate (where he'll wait for yet another). He tends to speak in italics and he always happens to be standing in line beside you.

"That woman is taking forever to get her shoes off."
"That guy has three bags. Three." 
"Now they're making us take our jackets off."
"Shift change. Great."

Who, exactly, is this guy talking to? Is he narrating a book? I don't get it.

The Shady Dude With The Lap Top: This is the guy that's sitting at your gate (in the back corner, of course) typing madly away at his lap top and looking up every minute or so with shifty eyes. He's probably not planning any kind of airport destruction, but there's a good chance he's overseeing a heist in Chicago.

The Single Mom with Four Kids: God help this woman. Two of the kids are crying. One is running around and touching things with sticky fingers. And the last kid is repeating, "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom." This woman usually ends up sitting behind you on the plane. (As a mother myself, I sympathize with this chick. Also? I carry a purse-full of lollipops at all times--just in case.)

And there you have it. The usual suspects: airport edition. Rock on, frequent flyers.