I’ve Said It Before And Now I’m Saying It Again, Travel Has Lost All Its Glamour!

I’ll admit, it wasn’t Paris for the weekend or anything as romantic as that, it was Tucson, Arizona to see a friend who is touring with a production of Fiddler On The Roof starring Theodore Bikel. The man is 86, how many opportunities do any of us have to see the Broadway original in the show? While I had done the same thing with Carol Channing in her last tour of Hello Dolly to mostly embarrassing and making faces akin to, “God love her, she’s at least standing and talking at the same time.” I’m delighted to report that Mr. Bikel was a delight. So a quick Southwest hour flight from Vegas to Tucson I took and now that I’m in the airport waiting to go back home, I realize once more that I’ve said it before and now I’m saying it again, travel has lost all its glamour! – Don’t Get Me Started!

I’m only forty-five but I remember traveling in a suit and tie when I was young. It was an event. You dressed up, gave great thought to what you would take on the plane and you always asked for a deck of playing cards. My brother and I could play the card game, War for hours on end and did. But that was forty years ago, when they used to have a show. Now it’s a disco but not for Lola, wait that’s Copacabana. You get the idea.

So as I returned the rental car and got to the kiosk to print my boarding pass I was feeling okay about things. I had changed to an earlier flight so I all ready knew that I was in the lousy “B” world of Southwest and although I only have carryon luggage I’m prepared for the dreaded, “I’m sorry sir, we’re going to have to check that bag.” Pre-stripped I readied myself for entry into the security area. The watch and bracelet had all ready come off and been put away with the cell phone. The quart sized clear plastic bag containing the liquids permissible to board the plane (and that let everyone know I was gay by the fact that I was cramming face wash, moisturizer and three hair products into the small ziplock bag while there was no Mennen Speed stick in site) was all ready in a plastic bin and I was getting my laptop out to go into a plastic bin when I saw the bin seemingly move by itself in a shoved manner skidding past me. The man behind me I guess had decided that I was taking too long and decided to help me out. Help me out like when you’re a kid and don’t know it’s stupid to remove a chair from someone about to sit down. As I quickly moved forward to get up to my plastic bin and put the laptop in it I didn’t even look back at the asshole who had shoved it. He didn’t deserve one of my perfected icy stares of disgust. He wasn’t important enough for it.

So I get to the overcrowded gate and move right to the area where no one is sitting. I wanted to be able to look over at the humanity but not have to be a part of it. Soon he came. This oversized blustery man in a cheap charcoal gray suit. “What about this seat?” he indicated the seat next to the one that was housing my briefcase. I looked up, “It’s open.” As he plopped his oversized frame into the seat and seemed to be muttering to himself I was immediately sure that I had made a large mistake telling him the seat was open. First the cheap suit jacket came off. Next his carryon bags were place in a manner so that he could rest his oversized calves and feet on them. With a “galumph” his feet landed on the bags forcing the air out of them in a way that I thought he had killed his bags removing the last breath they would ever take. That’s when I saw them. Crocs. That’s right, while some might give him credit for the fact that they were black and definitely went with the cheap suit in their cheap rubberness, they were still crocs with a suit. And then he topped off the entire ensemble by pulling out of the inner coat pocket a mask with elastic that he stretched to fit his melon shaped head as if he was in some sort of spa for people who go to spas in an airport gate wearing cheap suits. As he began to snore two seats away from me I looked around the gate to see if anyone was seeing what I was seeing, to see if anyone was as disgusted as I was. No one even noticed. Then again, what could I expect? They were wearing crocs themselves, or flip flops, torn jeans and their iPod ear bud cords hanging down their chests.

This is it I thought, really it, forget travel being glamorous, it was no longer even attractive or civilized. So as I sit and type this and the snoring is becoming louder from cheap suit with crocs (his travel name, not his Indian name), I wonder if anyone sees me and gets that I’m not a “B54” as my boarding pass would suggest, I’m a seat 3D from back when 3D meant first class. I’ve said it before and now I’m saying it again, travel has lost all its glamour! – Don’t Get Me Started!

Read More Scott @ www.somelikeitscott.com