Airport Philanthropy

I don't pretend to be an unusually selfless person. Really. But I tend to think most folks are decent, and I like to pay my dues to the club of reciprocal humanism when I get the chance, and travel presents many such opportunities because any time you're in an airport there's a high concentration of people around you who are fucked somehow.

Thus, allow me to preen and feel good about myself!

1) During a marathon visit to the Ft. Lauderdale airport (don't ask) I overheard a woman inform her companions that she was desperate to find some Dramamine because she was so sick and, being a chronically nauseated gal myself, I called her over and pulled a tube of Dramamine from my bag of tricks.

2) In the security line at Dallas Love Field a young woman in front of me was caught trying to kill us all with two tubes of un-baggied lipgloss. The horror! (What exactly are the magical protective properties of the one quart ziplock baggie, by the way? How does it make me safer? I really want to know.) She dolefully passed them back down the line of waiting passengers to be tossed in the ridiculously overflowing garbage, and when they came to me I just stuck them in my own baggie, rendering them miraculously safe for travel! Not one of the crack security officers noted this, by the way, nor did she. Once through the gauntlet--and with my damn shoes back on--I caught up with her and presented her with her lipglosses--just as she was bitching to someone on her phone about having them taken. Heh. She was delighted and I felt like I stuck one to The Man. Win-win!

3) Finally, in yet another airport (did I get around this summer or what?) I found a cell phone in the women's bathroom, left in a stall. OK, this one's lame, I mean, who doesn't turn in lost property, but still. I turned it in. Actually, I also found a Blackberry on the floor under my feet once we got settled on the plane and located its owner in the row ahead of me, so that was a day of finding other people's electronics for some reason.

I would really, really love to have a Blackberry, too.