I was sitting here thinking about how nice it's going to be not having to travel this weekend and decided that I would post one of my old rants about traveling. And since everybody is way too freaking twisted up about everything I figured I try to make someone laugh.
Nothing fires me up like traveling. I think all of you know that. I'm sitting in the Southwest Airlines terminal in Houston and there's a person listening to a walkman CD player! I was very worried until I realized that she's waiting to get on a plane to San Antonio, which explains everything. You can walk by any Southwest gate and without even looking at the marquee behind the overly made-up happy person you can tell exactly where the people on that plane are headed. I shall give you my picks for the gates surrounding me right now.
Gate 20 – Definitely San Antonio. The girl with the CD player (where does one find a CD these days?) is indicative of people from San Antonio – they are always in the hippest fashion… from four years ago. Take a snapshot of the 2000-2002 era of fashion and you have your average San Antonian. The pants, shoes and shirts appear as if they were purchased just yesterday… in 2001. CD players, gigantic laptops and other out-of-date technology all go along with the San Antonio's motto "You have questions, we have the Riverwalk."
Gate 21 – Austin… not doubt. Rich people who have reduced themselves to packing their crap in old army rucksacks. Un-kept beards on the men and un-kept pits on the women are dead giveaways that they will be embarking on a trip to "keep Austin weird." Texafied hippies sip coffee and compliment each other on their "goodwill chic" clothing and their recent month long sabbatical from bathing. Everyone at Gate 21 is painfully important as they pull their $500 iPod Nanos from their $5 rucksacks or chat on their $700 cell phone. The other folks at the Gate are "Yowboys" – yuppie cowboys. These are guys that attended UT and during one especially enlightening Willie Nelson concert in college they decided that, despite their Dallas or Houston country club, polo wearing, BMW driving upbringing, they are now in fact "cowboys." They wear khakis and boots with Rolex watches. Their wives are 4 foot 9, weigh about 47 pounds and sport 16 carat diamond rings that look exactly like every other Yowboy's wife's ring. Yowboys are all on the phone talking with their frat brothers from 1988 that live next door to them in Austin… they are still talking about the chicks they "dogged" at the UT vs. Oklahoma game in 1987. This was easy despite the characters described above. Anytime you are within earshot of someone from Austin, you'll know it because they'll be talking about it. Austinites are like Harvard grads – you'll know where they live within three minutes of meeting them.
Gate 22 – These people are going to Phoenix, possibly Tucson – the difference is ever so slight. Either way it looks like a golf match could break out at any second. It's like a fashion show featuring only the newest golf apparel and modeled by men and women in their 40s to 70s. These people are so tan it's actually contagious. Not a person at the gate is wearing pants. I don't care if they are leaving Michigan in January, they'll be in shorts. Look for ball caps with golf equipment manufacturer's logos and women and visors if you're ever headed to Phoenix and can't find your gate.
Gate 23 – El Paso. That's pretty easy since it's my gate. Anybody can figure this out pretty easily. The people waiting for the flight to El Paso are a hodgepodge of three groups.
1. The people who look like they could play the actors in a movie where there are chickens and goats on the plane and they land at an airport with a dirt runway.
2. Phoenix-like people.
3. Cowboys with dirty jeans and real cowboy hats.
I also forgot to mention kids… Each person in the chickens and goats category is reproducing at a rate of one child per half hour – a child who will scream for the entire hour and a half flight to El Paso while their parents sleep blissfully.
Gate 24 – Any idiot knows that this the Vegas crowd. It's made up of white trash drunks, whiny seniors, drunk white males under the age of 35 slipping into their fake "persona" which is an unmarried doctor with beach houses on three continents. In reality they are married junior level executives for companies that are about to go bankrupt. There's luggage everywhere because Vegas people are precisely the type of assholes who don't check bags. It's 9:30 AM and Southwest staff has already told four people they can't get on the plane until later when they sober up. The hoochie mama "Daddy's girls" and the single women over 35 looking to score in Vegas during "girl's weekend" are all decked out in clothing they should never be allowed to wear whether in Vegas or not. They are laughing and pointing at the loser males acting like rich doctors while the loser males swear to each other they will not take home any women that look like them. Reality – they'll be naked next to each other in less than 10 hours after arriving in Las Vegas. Vegas people are a notch above Austin people on the annoying meter. Also, watch for women wearing stupid matching shirts with sayings like "Wedding - $23,000 in 1990. Divorce Settlement $78,000. Single again and heading to Vegas with the Girls – PRICELESS!" Shirts should just say "I'm a divorcee who will cry after we have sex."
Gate 25 – Dallas. It's not the big hair or the gaudy jewelry that makes them so easy to spot, it's the fact every single person looks exactly the same. Women's clothing differs only in color. Men are eagerly explaining that the reason they are flying Southwest is due to their unique flight times and that they would usually be flying first class on American. Children of total strangers are comparing options on their parent's leased 2005 Chevy Suburbans to achieve yuppie superiority over the other kindergartners at the gate. The lone Highland Park toddler sits alone looking through TCU and SMU brochures pondering the pros and cons of their WASP legacies. Nobody at the entire gate has cash on them – despite their privileged appearance, the average person is worth $-65,789.52 and will leave their children with a mountain of debt after their gone.
Gate 26 – It took a while, but I figured out that it's full of people going to Oakland. Instead of loading the plane by A, B or C, they load the Crips, followed by the Bloods and then load the scared shitless white people who can't afford to live in San Francisco.
Maybe next time you are flying you can play this little game while you wait to see what screaming baby and white trash mother you'll be seated next to. The key to life is to entertain yourself even if it's at the expense of others.
This is funny. But, how 'bout Houston? I'd like to hear about those folks. Having been a proud resident of San Antonio, Austin, Houston and now El Paso (I draw the line at Dallas), not to mention just having flown SW to and from Las Vegas, I resemble these remarks. Do some more funny stuff from time to time. El Paso needs more humor.
Posted by: Cindy | October 13, 2007 at 11:16 AM
Cindy,
Houston is off limits most of the time. My wife and in-laws are from Houston.
More than likely there were no Houston people there because they couldn't figure out what freeway to take to the airport.
I will be posting a lot of my old funny content soon.
Thanks for reading.
Posted by: Brad Kanus | October 13, 2007 at 08:21 PM