Layover

Aw jeez. Life in an airport is the pits.

The pits!

I'm smack in the middle of a ten-hour layover, and I'm hungry. I've narrowed my choices down to two: Chili's (no way in hell) and Corporation Inc.'s Bagels and Overpriced Salads. Not promising. Meanwhile, the seating area by the gates are filled with chairs that they apparently got from an old Soviet-era medical facility waiting room, with padding as effective as paper towel wrapped around a cinderblock.

The Republican National Convention is on every television with the sound turned up, and sportswriters are roaming around in packs that resemble big lumpy Pillsbury Doughboy armies who all wear the same brand of khaki pants. There's John McCain merchandise in every store, which leads me to ask the cashier where the Obama stuff is.

"Sold out!" she proudly claims.

"So they force you guys to keep the McCain shirts out, even though nobody would be caught dead buying one?"

She nods sheepishly. The wild world of high-flying American politics!

TJH