On the
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I would like to begin by noting that I accept full responsibility for the series of events that landed me in the
- I am a procrastinator, and bought my plane ticket to my brother’s graduation last minute. Also,
- I am broke, so I bought the tickets on a discount airfare website, which booked the tickets on two different airlines.
- I am stupid, and went to JFK instead of LaGuardia on my way to St. Louis, consequently missed my flight, which resulted in various re-bookings, expensive new ticket purchases, and cancellations of previous itineraries, which, to make a long story short, meant that last Monday from 9:15 a.m. to 5:10 p.m., I was stuck in the airport of Columbus, Ohio and feeling particularly spiteful and misanthropic.
So before anyone takes offense at my spiteful tales of Port Columbus International (PCIA), please remember that I am a self-proclaimed meanie who is unpunctual, mentally addled and has no money, and that making fun of the people around me is my only source of joy.
When one sees a full work day stretching before them at a
a.) You can spend money - get drunk at the airport bar, buy the latest Secret to Success type book and some souvenir magnets, etc.
b.) You can read.
c.) You can walk around and marvel at the special blend of tackiness and mercantilism that is Airport Commerce.
I realize that more fun-loving types who are apt to make lemonade when life hands them lemons. might choose to hop in a taxi and visit one of Columbus’ fine art galleries or take a stroll along the riverfront, but for the reasons listed above, this is simply not an option for a person of my temperament and I chose instead to wander the airport feeling sorry for myself and taking inventory of the ways in which airports—and airport commerce in particular—are terrible.
My first venture was into the Broad and High shop, which had the usual airport merchandise. There was a special—50% off luggage sets, the type designed for people who prefer to carry 7 small-to-medium sized bags with matching print rather than one large suitcase or duffel bag. The hand luggage sets were available in black and white floral, tasteful brown and tan checks, and—for the fun, young-at-heart yet moneyed travelers—pink with white polka dots! Hooray! I don’t think I have ever seen someone carrying one of these luggage sets in real life. Didn’t the evil woman who was going to marry the Dad in the Parent Trap movie bring this kind of luggage on the camping trip, thus tipping us off that she was frivolous, selfish, and not to be trusted? That aside, the luggage sets were 50% off, so, I don’t know, maybe the connotations would be worth it to score such a bargain.
Also available at Broad and High was a line of costume jewelry (“Cool Jewels for a Cool World”) which featured rhinestone crucifix earrings for a cool $7.99. These were beside two of my favorite items in the entire airport: the wooden roses and the humorous vocational coffee mugs. Roses first. They were pretty much exactly what they sound like. Roses carved from wood. Remarkably lifelike, even to this jaded and angry airport observer. Available in a wide range of colors, for $29.99 a dozen. Then there was the rack of career-joke coffee mugs, where you buy gifts for people you barely know, clearly hate, but for some reason feel compelled to purchase a souvenir mug inscribed with some witticism about their chosen career. My favorite examples (irregular capitalization in the originals):
Insurance Agent - “Proud to be a risk covering, property protecting, policy issuing, no claims bonus INSURANCE AGENT!” (They forgot “gerund loving,” but ok.)
Domestic Diva - “Just because I’m a family raising, meal cooking, homemaking phenomenon doesn’t mean I’m a DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE!”
Corrections Officer - “Just because I’m in Prison Services doesn’t mean I DON’T GET OUT once in a while!”
After spending about 7 minutes in Broad and High being bombarded with shit I don’t need, I realized that by spending such a large amount of time in an airport I had planted myself squarely in that most coveted of demographic/consumer groups - Americans With Disposable Income. You can tell a lot about a group of people by what other people try to sell them. Looking closely at the merchandise for a particular group can tell you a lot about a group’s deepest needs. For example, if you watch Grey’s Anatomy you will quickly realize from the advertisements that you are in the company of a group of women, let’s say 25-55 years of age, and that what this group needs is Crystal Light, cellulite reducing creams, Match.com, and eye wrinkle serum. In other words, health, beauty, love, and youth.
It became clear within the first hour at the PCIA Town Center Shops that one of the things that Americans With Disposable Income need most are Puns and Plays on Words.
Broad and High, for example, is run by a fictional character named Sue Venir, a cartoon woman who is even at this moment “travelling the globe to bring you great designs at great prices.” Posters around B&H show Sue to be a slender yet busty gal with impressively sculpted arms, which are displayed as she flexes, holding several shopping bags in each arm. Sue wears a tasteful red sundress and enormous matching hat (presumably she is just back from scouring the Kentucky Derby to bring us back sue-perb items at excellent prices), along with classic pearls and oversized sunglasses. She is a paragon of style, taste, and wordplay.
Having had quite enough of Sue and her somehow very disturbing coffee mugs, I wandered into the airport
The Relaxation, of course, took the form of lavendar-vanilla scented linen sprays, soothing gardenia body butters, and a line of cosmetic bags with the following commands emblazoned on them: “CHILL out,” “Calm,” and “good NIGHT” (again, irregular capitalization from the originals). Time is a little harder to bottle, but they have done it, with products like “Just a Minute,” a hand-scrub that boasts that after just one minute of vigorous exfoliation with self-heating granules, your hands “will look like they spent all day at a spa.” There are also several products that multitask, allowing you to disinfect your hands while reinvigorating your spirit, condition your hair while rejuvinating your soul, and even a lip balm that purports to freshen your breath, allowing you to substitute a nice lip conditioning for that pesky tooth brushing that takes up so much time. But most impressive, to my mind, were the puns. Favorites included “Bring Up The Rear” booty-firming potion and “Be More Pacific,” a shower gel that, rather than getting its users to join Cindy Sheehan in protest, smells like a beach.
There was also an up-market line of products made from BBW’s exclusive marine complex, including a Coral Facial Polish, which, in case there were any concerned marine biologists about to cause a scene in the calming and hyper-scented shop, noted “no coral was harvested or utilized in the making of this product.” (Insert collective sigh of relief from eco-minded BBW shoppers with poorly developed senses of irony here.)
I left BBW, marching past “First Class Seats,” large massage chairs parked in the middle of the shopping area which exhort weary, time-pressed travelers to “RELAX IN A HURRY” by getting an electric massage in front of curious passers-by. At 3 minutes for $1 and 15 minutes for $5, you need only get over the anxiety of being massaged by a chair as busy people walk by and stare at you, and you can be granted both Time and Relaxation at once.
Tempted by the chairs (the 3 minute option being well within my allotted budget for the day at PCIA) but unable to stomach the idea of being so relaxed in such a public spot, I headed outside for some cigarette smoking.
The designated smoking area is truly the highlight of PCIA, and I say this with much sincerity and admiration. The smoking area is located across the street from the entrance, and the good smokers of
Returning to the interior in a much nicer mood, I noticed that the
The floor tile is also worth noting. It is white, but has flecks of colored glass embedded throughout, giving the floor a very playful feel. Adding to the playful fun atmosphere of the airport interior are Kids Color Columbus posters, 18×24 inch enlargements of children’s drawings of interesting sites in the city, accompanied by charming write-ups about the zoo, the jazz festival, etc. written by 8-10 year olds. Even I cannot hate that. There is also a police officer who rides a bicycle slowly up and down the ticketing area, picking up speed when foot traffic allows. What a place.
I ventured to Heritage Books, this time not to make fun of the merchandise, but with a mind to actually buy something. Specifically, I was hoping for a notebook. Heritage delivered. This is also a pretty big deal—I have had considerable trouble getting blank notebooks at other airport bookshops in the past. For example, the international departures terminal at JFK has no notebooks for sale. In the entire terminal! In addition, the very nice cashier pointed out that I need not buy a commemorative
Next I visited the Nutcracker Suite, a shop that sells primarily bulk candy. I realized that I was fully pun-saturated when I found myself mentally congratulating the Nutcracker Suite management for the restraint they showed in not dubbing their store Nutcracker Sweet. The sign outside the shop announced Nutcracker’s wares: Candy, Ice Cream, Balloons, Souvenirs and Necessities. Intrigued by the “necessities,” I went inside. There I found the following items, which are demonstrably not candy, ice cream, balloons, or souvenirs, and therefore must fall into the Necessities category: an Art Deco Box ($125), small plates decorated like Easter eggs (on sale for $8), and an enormous Chocolate Octopus, which may not have been for sale as it was truly enormous and no price tag was visible.
I moved on, sitting down near the First Rate Seats to ogle those souls daring enough to sit down and get their public electronic quick and relaxing massage. (To discourage loiterers who only want to sit in the cushy reclining chairs without paying for the massage, the chairs have pressure-activated recordings that shout “THANK YOU FOR VISITING FIRST CLASS SEATS. PLEASE DEPOSIT CASH OR CREDIT CARD,” repeatedly as soon as anyone sits down.) I scribbled down information from my trips to B&H, Heritage, Nutcracker, and BBW in my notebook, not wanting to forget the rhinestone crucifix earrings or the troubling mugs. I noticed that in the several hours I have spent at the airport thus far, I have only heard 2 voice recordings reminding me that the Department of Homeland Security has declared the nation to be at Threat Level Midnight, I mean,
I readied myself to go through the security gates and see what treasures await me within the concourse. (There will be a live masseuse who gives back rubs in a specially designed chair for $19 for 15 minutes, and I will watch enviously as fellow passengers indulge and RELAX IN A HURRY at her pleasant station, which, although located in the middle of the concourse, maintains a pleasant separateness by blasting soothing New Age instrumental music.) Cell phone transferred from pocket to purse. Liquids in plastic bag. Flip-flops ready for quick removal. Boarding pass and photo identification out for inspection. And then I remembered. The callus shaver. That’s right, during my trip I purchased, at the Dollar General store in
I was then overtaken by a fit of paranoia, sure that my behavior was betraying my nervousness and that my deceit was visible to the trained security checkpoint personnel the moment they looked into my beady little eyes. Furthermore, I was carrying a notebook full of scribbling that would certainly make me look like a madman. There were coffemug jokes and lists like “art deco box, easter egg plates, chocolate octopus” scrawled on the pages of my fresh steno, which while clearly material for a very humorous essay, admittedly look more like the “notes” of an asylum escapee. Along with notes about the bike-riding police officer and the frequency of the TSA announcements, the notebook was sure to peg me as a pedicure-tool-wielding terrorist, should anyone take the time to look carefully through my things.
I was so distressed by the imagined interrogations I was surely about to undergo that I barely noticed the Disposable Security Checkpoint Booties for sale in a vending machine midway through the queue maze, which, for the bargain price of one dollar will keep your feet germ free while the TSA x-rays your strappy sandals. Perhaps distracted by the woman behind me who has foolishly neglected to place her mascara in her liquids ziplock bag, the x-ray operator does not notice my callus scraper, and I continue to the gate with my brand new pedicure tool safely buried in my bag.
A scant few hours later I was back in
P.S. my feet look great and callus-free.
—RMR