Mr. Gerber's Wild Ride

Here's a description of some of the people I had the esteemed privilege of seeing on my romp across the country for the holidays:

The woman in front of me at Airport security
She chose to wear knee-high boots with a zipper down the calf from top to heel. I know that these new-fangled security guidelines are capable of shattering anyone’s routine, and that having everyone take off their shoes really slows down the security line. But September 11th was over 7 years ago. Now, you’re just another fucking moron and not merely living with St. Christopher’s absence.

The guy directly behind me in the Southwest boarding line
For those of you who haven’t flown in the “no hidden charges zone” Southwest still has you pick your own seat. In order to do this, you are assigned a check-in number and you have to get yourselves in line when the time is called like you’re headed to recess. This conversation ensued:

Me: (standing in line minding my own business)
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Well looks like you’re A15, and since I’m A16 I guess I’m right here.
Yep. That’s how number fucking order works.
My disinterested nod shook him off of me, but my ears could not be saved. After all, A15 must stay in front of A16. We just covered this.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: (to no one in particular) So…headed to Baltimore, huh?
Crickets: Chirp chirp.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: Don’t know what the big deal is with this weather! Back where I’m from in Syracuse this is like flurries. We got 18’ of snow in December 3 Christmases ago.
Right. Which is yet another reason why I don’t live in Syracuse.
Middle-aged dude in need of friends: All they need to do is prep the streets with salt and get the rotation going. And where do you get your salt from? Salt City, USA. (dramatic pause) SYRACUSE!
What are you, a Syracusan real estate agent? And if you are, you suck at your job. So far your major selling points have been 1) we’ve got salt 2) we’ve got God-wrath amounts of snow and 3) your sorry ass. You can’t pay me to live there.

Then, moments later, douchebag in the aisle holding up the whole flight.
I know for a fact that you’re only allowed to bring one carry-on bag. They tell you fucking anywhere you look in an airport. This fact is incontrovertible. But somehow, this guy gets onto the plane with 3 fucking bags! He’s pushing a rolling bag in front of him, pulling one behind him, and has a massive backpack strapped to his back. But it wasn’t the number of his bags nor was it the fact that it took him 10 minutes to realize that he couldn’t fit 3 great big bags into an already crowded overhead compartment that told me I wasn’t going to like him. No, I knew I wasn’t going to like him from the moment I saw that the straps of his backpack were clipped together three inches below his chin like he was ready to go absailing in a fucking canyon. That was enough.

Dickhead shuttle bus driver
After this debacle, I had to grab a train to get to my final destination. I had roughly 30 minutes to catch the shuttle to the train station, pick up my ticket, and get on board. When I got to the curb to grab the shuttle, there was already a mass of people waiting there. One guy was yelling as loud as he could as if that was the signal to get a shuttle driver to show up. I did not hate that idea.
I noticed about 100 feet away three shuttles were idling instead of, you know, shuttling. I walked ahead of the pack and waved to try and flag one down. In response, the shuttle driver in the front turned his lights off, presumably to prevent me from seeing the giant white bus parked under row upon row of artificial light. Or maybe just to be a dick. I would be less offended if the latter was his motivation.

There were many other fine travelers out today, but I’ve been en route for over 6 hours now and that much travel combined with all this anger has really worn me out.