People suck.
People have always sucked, people will always suck, and people generally sucking causes all the world’s problems. The whole point of existence is to try to suck less.
That said, I love people. Not in the humanity-loving, we must save all through power of love kind of way, but in the same way that I love sharks on Shark Week. We are an endlessly fascinating species, and if you know where to go and how to listen, you’ll never need a television.
The airport is my favorite place to sit back and watch. Everyone is absolutely exhausted, at wit’s end, and just generally one twelve-dollar water bottle away from snapping and hurling themselves into a propeller. It’s beautiful.
Perhaps my favorite airport is in Honolulu, HI. Aside from the obvious temperate nature, this is the absolute best place to watch people at the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Come with me, if you would, to Honolulu sometime in mid-May:
You are a Hawaii resident. Or, if you prefer, you like Hawaii, but leaving it for any reason does not fill you with anguish. Because of this, you are free to observe the rich madness that inevitably surrounds you.
You are in line at the check-in counter. In front of you is a family of five with matching Hawaiian shirts and crispy, bright red skin. The father is trying to haggle the price of checked baggage with the desk guy—“It didn’t cost a damn thing when I flew here!”—while the youngest tries to out-red his family by screaming at the top of his lungs. It is safe to assume, at this point, that this very child will be sitting next to you on the plane, particularly if he “doesn’t fly well.” Your chances double if he is sick and/or you like your chosen outfit. The other two children, probably twins, are trying to strangle each other with the plastic leis they bought in the event that someone back in Bumfuck, Minnesota is unclear as to where they spent their vacation. Mom is staring blankly to the middle distance, possibly wondering where her life has gone, how many lava flows she can afford once she gets past security, and how much it would cost to check her children into cargo (“THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS?” “Sir, perhaps six ukuleles aren’t necessary...”). If it kills all of them, they will look back on the experience as: The. Best. Fucking. Vacation. Ever.
You are at the security checkpoint. It’s Hawaii, so things are a little less intense than at normal airports. The TSA agents, while not cheerful, seem to lack either the desire or the motivation to shoot the magnitude of disgruntled tourists who joke about the bombs they have in their water and the prospect of getting to second base with someone they’d never met. Then again, maybe they just ran out of ammunition. Meanwhile, the family of five is trying to locate Twin 1’s left sneaker, Twin 2’s iPod, and Screaming Child’s tonsils, which appear to have flown out onto a TSA agent’s shoe. However, you are still waiting on the flightless side of the x-ray machine because the forty-three Japanese tourists who somehow managed to get in front of you now must remove their cameras, iPhones, keys, molecular accelerators (so that’s how they got ahead!), and backup cameras from their person and into individual buckets. This takes approximately three weeks, but you are patient because you get to watch forty-three Japanese tourists attempt to speak what they clearly think is English to a TSA agent cleaning tonsil off his shoe, who attempts to respond in what he clearly thinks is English.
“Is beautifurr, yes?”
“Eh?”
“Is vedy beautifurr hede!”
“Uh…yeah…. Eh, brah, jus’ take one step back, yeah? Cannot scan errybody at one time, eh?”
“One…? Oh, yah, yah.”
The spokesman must then communicate to the other forty-two Japanese tourists that he needs to move backward. In order to demonstrate his fluency, he does this in English first.
“Go back!”
“Back?”
“Back whede?”
“Back!”
This goes on for a few hours before the tourists, apologizing profusely, finally make it through the machine. One of them forgets a backup backup camera tucked into a holster on his calf and sets off the buzzer. He is promptly taken outside and shot.
Congratulations! You have made it through security and are now walking to your gate (no need to rush, though—your flight left about a month ago). After a few days, you begin to wonder if your gate is in the same hemisphere as security. Fear not! It totally is. They just moved the lines last week. Aren’t you glad those tourists held you up now? As you stumble into your gate, you see that the Japanese tourists are taking turns posing with a plastic palm tree and Twins 1 and 2 have built a fort out of napkins, suitcases, and the tears of exhausted travelers. And, what luck! A plane has just landed! You watch the parade of fresh-faced, tired but exhilarated tourists in matching Hawaiian shirts and plastic leis (worn in the event that those in Bumfuck, Wisconsin are unclear as to their destination) tromp off the plane. They are completely blind to the fate that awaits them in a few weeks, burned and glaring at those just embarking on their adventures. Eventually, the plane boards, the twins must collapse their fort, the palm tree is bleached white from the excessive exposure to flash, and you sit next to the crying baby whose sole purpose in life is to pop a snot bubble on the back of your hand. The desk agents close the door behind the last traveler, spray paint the palm tree green, and return to their Sudoku puzzles.
You are now in Bumfuck. It is snowing. You, being the forethinking person you are, considered the possibility that the temperature in Bumfuck may differ from the temperature in Honolulu. Your crispy friends did not have this stroke of genius, and are now sniping at each other all through baggage claim, their screaming brood trailing behind them. They are never leaving the state, ever again. Ever.
There.
Now aren’t you glad we did that? There is quality familial self-destruction everywhere you look, and it is infinitely more entertaining than reality television. Because you just can’t script that kind of crazy. If everyone was mellow and people didn't suck, imagine how dull that flight would have been. Now, next time you realize that people suck, you can remember that that's why they exist, and that that is why they are so damn funny. You're welcome.
Until next time,
Mars
