I’m sitting in the departures lounge of Logan International and I’m really bored. I feel like I’ve read every page on the internet and eavesdropped on every nearby conversation. I’ve discovered that nobody at this airport today has an interesting life. My flight has been delayed by two hours so I’ve turned to the only possible solace that I have; writing. I can almost feel myself turning mad as the piped Christmas music in the hall permeates my ears (they are too cheap to pay for hits so have music that resembles traditional songs) and the greasy miasma of the nearby Burger King hangs in the air. We were given a $10 food voucher by Virgin Atlantic to compensate for the delay and I was reasonably happy at that until I realised that they are valuing our time at $5 an hour! Even so the delay wasn’t their fault so after a peppermint latte and chocolate crossaint from Starbucks I feel refreshed, if not any less bored.
The best thing about being bored is that it takes you places you would never go. How many other people in the world right now can say that they read the news article on the BBC about the Jews that used to live in Arabia or the fact that the wife of the Thai royal prince is out of favour because of the corruption of her family. That information will never be useful to me but somehow I now feel a little more up to date with current affairs, and I wouldn’t be if I’d stuck to Reddit or Facebook. I only pay so much attention to things that don’t affect me when I’m trapped at an Airport or procrastinating to a gold medal standard. Airport delays may have a certain use after all.
Sometimes delays like this give me a time to think and reflect, sometimes they make me mad, today I just feel resigned. It isn’t Virgin’s fault and theres no point in raging at the staff, we are all in the same situation here. I’ve learnt something by sitting here (London is 3280 miles away from Boston) and that will have to suffice. I hate flying, I hate how people have carry on bags that are the same size as my hold luggage and delay takeoff by trying to find a space for them. I hate how people are so desperate to get onto the plane first even though we all have assigned seats and I hate how you get treated like cattle when you fly, despite transatlantic flights costing more every year. But at least they haven’t taken away the free alcohol on Virgin or BA yet, we can all be grateful for that!
What do you do when you are stuck somewhere for hours?