Traveling can be fun, but the mode of transportation is often filled with horrors. Airports, for example, are high-stress, extreme-security locations where humans from all walks of life intermingle, and the result is often every level of appalling. Fortunately, up until this point, I have only been a bystander watching this train-wreck of human interaction. But recently, on a trip to Greece, I was upgraded to participant. Oh goody.
Now, despite my height, muscular build, and what some would describe an "intense" demeanor, I am not prone to engage in conflict. I much rather prefer to run away, literally and figuratively. Maybe that's why succeed in running marathons: my evolutionary history has endowed me with the innate sense to flee trouble. Usually, during any kind of conflicting situation, my ever-present thought is "what will make this conversations stop?" SIDE NOTE: this does not apply to people I know. With people I know, I am usually Miss-Know-It-All and I try to subdue you with facts. I WILL WIN WITH ACCURATE INFORMATION is my battle cry. This is, by far an away, the most annoying thing about me and I apologize to everyone in my life because I am sure I have tried to bitch-slap you with my superior intellect at least once. One particular story comes to mind when I was out with a guy on a first date and he said he wasn't sure he believed in certain elements of Global Warming. Instead of, oh I don't know, having an actual discussion about it, I launching in to FACTS! and scared the hell out of him. It is a miracle we are still friends. He distinctly said, at the end of my FACTUAL INFORMATION SESSION that we should never speak of it again. Yikes. But with strangers, I just want to get away from you. Flee, flee!
Anyways....so, there I am in the Athens airport with my 40 students I have brought on a trip, my coworker who is chaperoning the trip with me, and the travel agent who organized said trip. We are all standing in line at the check-in to get our boarding passes. Up waltzes this very thin, very tan, very bleach-blonde haired woman. She has just cut in front of all our students and is standing alongside us three adults. The travel agent, a very no-nonsense kind of person, turns to her and says "Excuse me, we are all a group. You just cut in front of our students. The line starts back there". Shots. Fired.
Tan-Bleach-Blonde lady is not amused. "You expect me to wait in line behind all those people!? I am just one person. I am cutting ahead". You can here the indignity in her voice, like Marie Antoinette scoffing at a peasant who is begging her for bread. Now it's my coworkers turn. Cristina is a petite sweet-faced Italian-American who will cut you if you cross her. "Oh god," I think. "We're now all going to witness a homicide. Maybe it will be like Serial. Is someone going to interview me for a podcast?" Cristina retorts back, "That's how lines work. We're all waiting in line." TBBs face is getting more pursed, like she's tasting a lemon. "My flight is soon, this is ridiculous". Mind you, we're all waiting in line for the same flight...which leaves in 2 hours. TBB just doesn't want to wait with the plebeians.
I finally make my move. "You don't just cut ahead. You ask first". Now, I am 100% sure I meant this to come across as informative and assertive, but by the look on Cristina's face, I might as well have slapped TBB right across her lemon-pussed snear. Oh no, escalation, here it come. TTB looks me square in the eye and says "So, are we gonna fight about it?"
For the first time ever, I was ready to respond "I think we're already fighting", as in, bring it the fuck on lady. This woman was half my size, I could manage this, plus I had Cristina and the travel agent for back-up. Maybe it was all my students looking at this ridiculous hot mess of 4 women squabbling over line priority and manners or maybe it was that I had been shuttling 40 students around Greece for 4 days and was at my absolute limit to tolerate rudeness. But I was ready to BATTLE. Leave it to Cristina to simply say "Go ahead, please, go ahead of us" in the most sickly-sweet tone of voice. She also added in a dramatic bow so as to usher TBB forward in line. TBB was appalled, but she had gotten what she wanted, so she moved up and continue to glare back at us.
OH WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN! That was my moment. I was ready to bring out my inner Khal Drogo and let her have it. But, it's probably better I didn't. I have gone this far without getting arrested. I don't need to start a criminal wrap sheet now. My problem is I have no "moderate setting". I'm either tolerant or ALL LEVELS GO ANGRY. Charming, right? Maybe that's why I run away. I know I cannot water-down my insanity. God knows what would have happened to TBB if I had kept going. Probably nothing, but I'm sure security would have been called at some point to quell the tall blonde screaming at a wispy, middle-aged, overly tanned woman, chastising her on her inability to follow line etiquette.
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