So, I am going to see Green Day’s American Idiot opera, and honestly, I’m a bit lukewarm about it. Don’t get me wrong, I think Green Day has really matured in their music and messages to the audience without sacrificing their core beliefs. But Green Day in the same sentence as opera sounds like an oxymoron…like honest government, or healthcare.
My friend and I take the train because, if nothing else, everything beyond the West Coast has sensible transportation. We are a mix on the train, Green Day opera attendees, hockey fans, and the other folks. The other folks account for those who are trying to get a free ride to somewhere, including the opera and hockey destinations.
Also on the train there are what I call ticket masters who comb through the passengers looking for freeloaders, aka the others.
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I’m now in Illinois. To be exact, Belleville, Illinois. What am I doing in Belleville Illinois you might ask. Well, going to a hockey game of course. Hockey teams, the Blues and the Blackhawks, are big here in Illinois, as is Cardinals baseball. There doesn’t seem to be much love pouring forth with the Rams though. Now I won’t profess to be knowledgeable about hockey. I’ve never seen a game on TV, nor even played a part in a fake hockey game. And, I don’t believe wearing a “Jason” scary movie hockey mask counts as informative either. So I toddle off to the meeting of rivals, the Illinois Blues versus the Chicago Blackhawks. We are taking a train from Belleville to St. Louis where the game is to be played. Upon entering the train there is a small young boy, maybe 5 or 6, sitting with his dad. He is in a red tee shirt emblazoned with “Blackhawks” on it. My friend enters the train wearing a Blues jacket. The young tyke takes one look at the jacket and drops his jaw in dismay as if to protest that “his” train has been invaded by the enemy. We sit two rows back with no one between us and the father and son. The son whispers to his dad, his dad quietly says something back that settles the young one in his seat, though the boy steals glances back every so often to make sure we aren’t coming any closer. The dad offers a game of rock, paper, scissors to his son which soon turns to comical proportions fairly soon.
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Once the screening is completed, my belongings gathered, and my shoes back on, I make my way to gate 9 to wait for my flight. I stop in one of the stores to purchase mints and a paper. The smiling lady behind the counter rings up the goods, I hand her a twenty dollar bill, she hands me back 7 cents and then smiles and says “Have a good day”. I look down at the nickel and two pennies sitting in my hand and want to say back, “Don’t tell me what to do, I’ve just given you my kids college fund for a newspaper and a roll of mints.” Of course, not being from New York, I reply instead, “Thank you, you also”. I walk away thinking that I’ve just had the lowest costing colonoscopy in the history of US medicine.
So, with gold minted newspaper and mints in hand, I locate a seat just in front of gate 9. As I settle in, a woman with a couple of carry-on bags makes her way to the chair directly across from me. As she is settling in, I hear a faint growl like sound. I peer around looking for the source of the sound, I see nothing so go I go back to my reading of the value of gold and my newspaper. Once again I hear the faint growl, but this time the woman across from me looks downward toward her lap and says quietly, “Oh, stop, you’re not going to give me problems are you?”. I think, poor gal, probably ate at one of the airport restaurants and is having stomach problems. I try to ignore her look of concern but found myself glancing at her every so often. She picks up one of her bags and pulls out some kind of medicine, probably for her stomach, I am really hoping that I’m not seated next to her on the plane.
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Standing in line, inching forward, I thought of cattle being ushered with glacier like speed to a destination. There were a number of TSA employees around, but I’m not sure what they were doing. They also moved with glacier like swiftness to where ever they were going. I swear they were just changing stations with each other as if they were playing some form of musical chairs game. The only thing missing was the piping in of music to play their game.
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Safely at the airport, I trundle up to the skycap to check my baggage in. A very nice young man takes my baggage and sets it on the scale for weighing. He turns his attention back to issuing my ticket, then turns back to check the weight of my bag. At first he glances at the number projected as if he is not really concerned about the weight, then he begins to turn his head, then he stops suddenly and looks back at the number projected, then looks at me. The bag is overweight. How can that be I say.
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