Today is Sunday even though it is Monday. I have just returned home from a working weekend and what should really be Sunday is actually Monday. So in my own mind I have decided that tomorrow will be the Monday of my week.
Anyway, enough about that. I made a return flight to the UK this weekend and on both legs of the journey I saw and heard some mad stuff. That's mad as in "certifiable", and of the "looney bin" variety.
People seem to reach a heightened state of anxiety when they reach the airport. Way before they reach the aircraft (where it would be understandable to have high levels of anxiety) they are troubled to the point where they do things that just don't make sense.
Many years ago I remember watching a Monty Python sketch about "senile delinquents", a gang of marauding pensioners who went around beating up people while uttering their motto of "make tea not war". I think I bumped into a 5-person strong gang of senile delinquents in the airport on Saturday. Needless to say they wanted to fly to A but for some reason known only to them they were all sitting at the gate for a flight to B. I won't say where they were going as that will only add to potential attribution errors already forming in your mind.
Anyway, the logical rational and sane person would wander about and occasionally check that all was in order, the old "am I in the right place?" type of thought going through the mind. Not this gang. Here the strategy was to wait until T-5 minutes and then approach the desk of another flight just about to board. Of course this flight is not going where they wish to go so they move in to disrupt the maximum number of "younger people".
Next come the shrieks and squawks, the throwing of hands up into the air, and the look of utter and complete astonishment. I overhear the desk counter agent telling them "that flight has already boarded in area C, this is area A" so not only are they at the wrong desk, but they have missed their correct gate by a matter of the length of the entire airport. Excellent work.
The desk counter agent fails to spot their tactictal manouevre and foolishly tells them that they can be booked onto the next flight to that location, tomorrow morning.
Cue shrieking and wailing and more arms in the air. Eyes dart desperately from left to right as the sheer incomprehensibility of this suggestion sinks in. A quick-thinking colleague ushers a cart to come and bring them to another gate to fly them to another airport, presumably close to where they want to go. Then they are off and peace is restored.
How can this happen? Maybe it's a generation thing but there is a point at which you need to check if you are at the right place to catch your flight. This is not the first time I have seen this.
On the way back Gary is sitting behind me. I'm not sure where Gary is from, but he sounds very Australian but in a kind-0f "I lived in Oz for 5 years" way. The accent just does not sound authentic to me. He's on the phone to someone and is complaining vigorously about the "bladdy witha over here" as he puts it. He's telling the unfortunate person at the other end of the line that he is planning to go to Australia for a holiday to get away from the "bladdy witha" and how he plans to move there in September anyway. Clearly he did not know that the weather in this part of the world would be different to that of Australia. The chosen plan of action makes sense, Gary gets his sunshine fix and we all get some respite from his whinging. The Australians love to go on about the whinging poms so this whinging Aussie presents a striking contrast in my mind.
I've arrived home and now I will go to bed. I will dream tonight for the last time about the Russian oil and gas industry for the work is done and now it's time to move on to write about budgeting and planning. Will this excitement ever end?
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