Recently, I traveled to Asia. Here's what happened.
Finally, my date of departure. This afternoon I'm driving to L.A. to fly out of LAX at midnight for a 10 day trip in Asia. Normally, I wouldn't look forward to 14 hours in the air, but months of schedule-clearing almost came to naught as events both work and personal seemed to luridly spiral the closer I got to my trip. Grinding away to get to this point has been a little like the Bataan Death March, so now that this day is here, 14 hour flight time or not, I suppose I should be grateful.
Is LAX the friendliest airport? Usually, the airport is panned for its teeming crowds and difficult layout. But tonight, Linda at the check-in counter volunteers to get us seats together, giggling gate-screeners play passport-birthday bingo trying to guess each passenger's birth month, a janitor who sees me sitting on the side of an escalator pulls up a spare wheelchair for me to sit in, TSA security folks jest at the metal detector. What's going on here?
My guess: the lighter crowds for our midnight flight let SoCal friendliness effervesce to the surface, a trait normally masked by the crush of daytime crowds which ratchet up everyone's crankiness. Either that, or they've been slipping Prozac into the passengers' drinking fountains.
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