a tale of two cities' airports

By Todd Stadler · Friday, October 5, 2001 10:06pm

Last week I flew down to Berkeley to see Julia.

These were my thoughts at the Portland airport, on my way to see her:

Man, airline security measures aren't near as tough as they say they are. Show some ID a couple more places, sure, but things are moving at a normal pace. I got through the ticketing counter and security in thirty minutes. That leaves a whopping one and a half hours to twiddle my thumbs here in the terminal. And there's hardly anyone here to entertain me. Booooring. If I'm going to arrive at the airport two hours beforehand, I think they should have clowns at the terminal to entertain me. Of course, since they only allow ticketed passengers into the terminal, that would mean the clowns would have to get on the flight with me. And maybe they'd let them do the safety announcement. Maybe they would try to cram themselves into the overhead bin. Or they'd hit people over the head with the oxygen masks if they were reading a book instead of paying attention. That would be funny. And it would save lives.

And these were my thoughts at the San Francisco airport, on the way back home. See if you can note any differences:

Egads! Where are all these people going? Egads! They've cancelled my flight! At least they're putting me on another flight. Egads! The line for this new airline is a hundred people long! And the guy in front of me is trying to impress a woman with his tales of tending to Steve Martin's father. It would seem that "Steve" is a really nice guy. The woman is unmoved. Phew, I made it to the counter, forty minutes later. Egads! The line for the security gate is as long as the one for the ticket counter! Hey, I'm being frisked. Egads! They changed the gate for my flight! Egads! They charged me seven dollars for this pizza! Egads! Is that guy serious - look at his pants!

Did you notice the difference? That's right, the San Francisco airport has more mild exclamations the Portland one.