adventure

The Fastest Way Through the Line Was Waiting Your Turn

I don’t like writing posts that sound whiny. Nobody enjoys listening to the guy who thinks the universe has singled him out for special mistreatment. That guy is exhausting. This isn’t one of those stories. This is a story about justice. Tiny, insignificant, airport-line justice.

With our trip coming to an end, we arrived at the airport in Iceland expecting a relatively painless journey home. We did have one minor hiccup. Our airline ticket didn’t perfectly match my passport, so we had to stop at customer assistance before heading to security. No big deal. We stood in line, got it fixed, and confidently marched toward security after seeing the magical words every traveler wants to read: Estimated Wait: 5–10 Minutes. Airport monitors, I’ve learned, have a very loose relationship with reality.

Security apparently found both of our bags interesting. My wife’s bag was pulled aside because of medication. Mine was selected because, apparently, someone wanted a closer look at my charming personality. A security officer carried my backpack to a separate table, glanced inside for about three seconds, and handed it back. “You can take it.” My internal response was something along the lines of, Thank you for your tireless dedication to international safety. I feel much more secure knowing my backpack survived its three-second interrogation. This came only days after Copenhagen security permanently confiscated our oversized battery pack. We were informed, with all the warmth of an automated voicemail, that it was simply too large. My wife attempted a respectful appeal and was rewarded with the timeless customer service phrase, “Not in Copenhagen.” Apparently, that settled everything. Thankfully, our Iceland tour bus had USB charging ports, so civilization survived. None of this was bad luck yet. This was just Tuesday at an airport.

As we headed toward the D Terminal, we encountered passport control. Picture three large rooms connected by an endless maze of stanchions filled with weary travelers whose backpacks had somehow gained twenty pounds since vacation began. The line actually moved fairly well, but every so often we’d set our backpacks on the floor to give our shoulders a short break. It was a small, human, “I need to put this bag down for ten seconds” gap. Apparently, we made a critical mistake. We believed a line was measured by people. The couple behind us measured it by inches.

The moment a gap of approximately eighteen inches appeared, the wife quietly eased around us and tucked herself in behind the gentleman ahead of us. It wasn’t aggressive enough to qualify as shoving. It was more…creative. They didn’t apologize. They didn’t acknowledge us. They simply acted as though the laws of queuing had briefly been suspended for their convenience. It reminded me of one of those nature documentaries. “Observe the Queue Optimizer,” David Attenborough might narrate. “Rather than waiting patiently with the herd, she quietly advances whenever a tiny opening appears, gaining nearly eleven seconds while sacrificing all social credibility.” Honestly, if they’d skipped forty people, I might have admired the commitment. But cutting ahead of two people? That’s not bold. That’s just morally inefficient.

Then her husband announced from behind us, “I need to go forward to be with my wife.” As if we were the only thing standing between two star-crossed lovers who had been tragically separated by…about three feet.

My wife responded before I had the chance. “What are you doing? You don’t cut in line.” She’s never been particularly gifted at pretending injustice doesn’t exist. If there were a world championship for confronting people who ignore obvious rules, she’d at least qualify for regionals. The gentleman in front of us joined the conversation as well, making it abundantly clear that he wasn’t impressed with Team Queue Optimization either. The couple ignored all of us. It’s amazing how much confidence some people possess when they’re absolutely convinced that social norms apply only to everyone else.

A few minutes later, another Canadian couple struck up a conversation with us and, after witnessing the whole episode, felt obligated to assure us that not all Canadians behaved that way. We laughed, enjoyed talking with them the rest of the way through the line, and I decided there was no reason to hold an entire country responsible for the actions of two aspiring queue entrepreneurs. International relations had officially been restored.

Eventually, we reached passport control, where everyone had to choose one of several available officers. This is where Karma quietly clocked in for her shift. The Line Cutters confidently selected one lane while we picked another. Our line moved like an express checkout. Their line appeared to be staffed by someone conducting passport interviews as part of a doctoral dissertation. By the time we cleared passport control, found a coffee shop, ordered our drinks, and sat down, they still hadn’t made it through. I noticed, of course, but I resisted the temptation to smile in their direction. Not because I had suddenly become spiritually mature. Mostly because I didn’t want my wife to notice them first. She has a wonderful heart, but subtle victory celebrations are not one of her stronger gifts.

Before anyone accuses me of celebrating someone else’s misfortune, I should probably confess that I’m not always the model traveler. I’ve occasionally maneuvered around slower walkers after leaving a cruise ship. I’ve probably sighed louder than necessary behind someone trying to fit a week’s worth of souvenirs into an overhead compartment. I’m sure my own Karma account contains a few unpaid balances. That’s probably why this little airport moment felt so satisfying. It wasn’t because two people had to wait a little longer. It was because, for one brief and beautiful moment, the universe reminded us that shortcuts don’t always pay off.

Sometimes waiting your turn is actually the fastest route. And sometimes the reward isn’t getting there first. Sometimes it’s sitting fifty feet away with a surprisingly good cup of airport coffee while watching poetic justice quietly do its thing.

If that’s Karma, she’s welcome to join us for coffee anytime.

Babysitting, Humidity, and a Balanced Ledger

I want to go on record that I volunteered for this. Nobody made me do anything. That will matter later.

My wife had been excited about the 4th of July Eve plans ever since she heard the OKC Philharmonic was playing a free concert at Scissortail Park with fireworks after. She heard “free concert and fireworks” and I heard “several thousand of your closest strangers, downtown parking, and a heat index designed by someone who hates you.”

The concert started at 8:30 and the fireworks at 9:30, which is great timing unless you live near a small human whose bedtime is 8:00ish. So I made an offer I considered safely hypothetical. I told Judy that since Ellie’s parents wouldn’t be able to enjoy the concert anyway, I could stay home with the baby.

I assumed this offer would be admired and declined, the way all noble offers are supposed to work. Instead, my daughter texted me that Mom said I’d watch Ellie if they went. My generosity had been converted into a signed contract before I’d even finished congratulating myself on it, and I wasn’t even consulted on the press release.

But my wife does what she does.

Here’s my honest accounting of what I skipped. It was going to be mid-90s during the day. The event was free, which is a polite way of saying the whole metro was invited. Parking downtown is always an adventure, and the dinner plan involved either hauling food in like pack mules or standing in a food truck line long enough to qualify for residency.

We’d done the orchestra-on-the-lawn thing plenty of times in Ohio, listening to the Columbus Symphony at Chemical Abstracts, and I knew that routine cold. I knew where to park, where to sit, and when to leave. This event offered me zero known variables and a forecast that guaranteed everyone around me would be operating at about 90% of their normal patience, myself included.

So while the family went downtown, I fed Ellie dinner and followed her around the house for less than an hour. Her exhaustion and her bedtime arrived at the same moment, which is the babysitting equivalent of hitting the lottery. Grandpa did not have to endure the big sad eyes, and I consider that the real fireworks show.

Then I watched soccer and debated whether I’d made a wise decision or simply confirmed my status as the family hermit. The jury stayed out overnight.

The next morning I got my redemption arc. I attended the parade in Edmond as the only male in our entire family delegation. My son passed, and my son-in-law passed. I alone carried the banner of masculine parade attendance, and I did it on one of the hottest mornings of the year, when my bed was right there offering a very compelling counterargument.

My daughter came along and admitted she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to a parade. I understand that completely. It takes a certain amount of pride in your country to get out of bed on a morning you could sleep in, and I don’t count the 4th as a political event anyway. It’s a celebration every American should want to attend regardless of whatever Washington is currently doing to itself.

We arrived half an hour early, which earned us a seat that was worse than the canopy people’s and better than the stragglers’. In parade seating, as in life, you mostly aim for the middle of the pack and call it a win.

Some observations from the curb. Even at 9:00 in the morning, the sun means business, breezes should never be undersold, and humidity is a monster that needs to be slurped up by a cloud and relocated to a part of the country where I don’t live.

An hour is the correct length for a parade. Anything past that and the babies get restless, and I’m not going to pretend the old people weren’t doing the same math about beating the traffic.

You cannot have horses in a parade without a cleanup vehicle following them, which reminded me of a horse parade we attended near Delaware, Ohio, one of the biggest east of the Mississippi. People there drew chalk boxes on the street hoping a horse would leave its contribution inside their square. After a hundred horses go by, watching one do a #2 becomes genuine entertainment, and somewhere out there, a lucky winner was thrilled about manure.

The Shriners apparently brought every vehicle they own. Every float and car said “India Shriners,” which is the OKC chapter, and I did confirm that a Shriner is a Mason but a Mason isn’t necessarily a Shriner. I now know this permanently, whether I wanted to or not.

They did doughnuts in tiny cars and drove motorcycles in circles that slowly migrated up the route. They weren’t amazing, but they were entertaining, and this being our second year, they were exactly as entertaining as I remembered, which is its own kind of reliability.

An early highlight was a plumbing company float featuring Uncle Sam in a bathtub, either grateful to them for fixing his pipes or too lazy to walk the route. Based on what we could see, our Uncle was fully committed to the appearance of actually bathing, and I respect an actor who stays in character.

The expected inventory was all present. Three high school bands, fire trucks, police vehicles, a couple banks, politicians, beauty queens, and past grand marshals all baked in their own convertibles, waving hard enough to count as cardio.

My wife pointed out that the jazzercisers really had some energy. Their float came early in the route, and I suspect their jazziness declined as the temperature climbed, but they were giving us everything they had as they passed.

On the way home Judy wanted to stop at Sonic for a drink, an idea that was good in theory and then met parade traffic and a short-staffed Sonic that was losing its battle with the drive-thru. Fortunately, air conditioning can repair an attitude in about four minutes flat.

So that’s the ledger for the weekend. I skipped the concert on purpose, and I showed up for the parade on purpose, and I think the books balanced.

The truth underneath all of it is that Judy and I are getting closer to full retirement, which means a whole lot of years ahead of just the two of us deciding what we do with our days. I don’t want her dreading the thought of hanging with me every day, and I definitely don’t want her starting our upcoming trip wondering what kind of a boring guy she married.

Staying home with Ellie so her parents could have a night out was worth something. Standing in the heat while the Purple Heart veterans passed and the chairs emptied was worth more. The kids came over later for a cookout and homemade ice cream, and I’ll be there being adequately social, which for me is the sweet spot.

Judy knows what kind of guy she married. He complains about the humidity, skips the crowds when he can, and still gets out of bed for the parade, because some things deserve the sweat.

The 6 AM Rule

I have a 6 AM rule.

If the airport dropoff requires me to wake up before 6, I am operating in dangerous territory. When I am awake, I am awake — but the manner in which I arrive at “awake” matters enormously. I shake the sand out slowly. I need time to build momentum. If that process starts before the sun has any intention of showing up, I will spend the rest of the day staring at walls, losing verbal sparring matches I would normally win, and napping in chairs I had no plans to sit in. I am, essentially, a human screensaver.

My wife has no such limitations. She can wake at 3 AM, drive to the airport, come home, and go back to sleep like none of it happened. I find this both impressive and deeply unfair.

The labor of being the free Uber isn’t actually free, by the way. It’s paid for in brain cells and accidental afternoon naps.

Earlier this year — February, maybe, or early March, the details are fuzzy in the way that only pre-dawn experiences can be — I did a 5 AM dropoff. The wakeup was somewhere around 4:30. I won’t describe the rest of that day except to say I spent most of it trying to goose a single brain cell into firing.

So I updated the policy. One pre-6 AM spousal run per quarter.

This coming Saturday, her flight is at 5 AM. The math on that wakeup is not complicated. She asked me something about the flight options — “5:00 or 1:00?” —, and I thought my preference was obvious. She said, “Oh, they gave me the 5:00 flight.” There I was. A man of principle, staring down his principles.

I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do about that. A paid Uber is getting my vote, but votes change

Now, the rules are not the same for everyone. I’ve developed what you might call a tiered system. It is not written down anywhere, but it is very real.

Hockey boys know the score. They’ve seen enough early practices to understand that some hours of the day are not meant for human activity. If their flights are reasonable, I’m happy to run them. If they’re leaving at what the military calls 0-dark-thirty, they’re calling an Uber without any hurt feelings on either side. This is an understood arrangement.

Exchange students have, in my experience, been European, and Europeans apparently book flights like reasonable people. Arrivals tend to land in the afternoon. Departures can get a little early, but my wife handles those. She, as previously established, is built for this.

Family is where the policy gets complicated, mostly because family comes with feelings attached to it. There is an ongoing negotiation in our house about whether saving forty dollars on an early flight is worth what it costs in parental sleep and the general goodwill that holds a family together. I have opinions on this. I keep most of them to myself.

The honest truth is that family members (not our kids) who visit us for weddings usually have rental cars. Which means I can say, with complete sincerity, “Too bad you’ve got the rental — I would have been happy to run you.” And I might even mean it. I just don’t have to specify that my happy shuttle service has operating hours, and those hours start at 6.

The OKC airport, for what it’s worth, is a genuinely pleasant experience. Easy drive, easy TSA, more marijuana dispensaries along the route than I remember from DFW but fewer traffic lights, so it probably evens out. The only real drawback is that flights out of here tend to leave early. If you’re connecting through Dallas or Denver to get somewhere real, your day starts at an hour that tests people.

It tests me, anyway.

My wife is fine.

The 23-Hour Sunday: A Lesson in Oklahoma Nice

I have lived in Oklahoma for almost a year and a half now, and most days I’m met with a frequent reminder of just how nice people are here. We aren’t just talking “Chick-fil-A” level service; this is something deeper. As a Midwesterner by way of Texas, my critical thinking usually searches for the catch—but in Oklahoma, the “My Pleasure” attitude seems built into the asphalt.

The DFW Gauntlet vs. The OKC Glide

Coming from the northeast side of Fort Worth, I’m used to a certain kind of vehicular combat. To get to DFW Airport, you had to survive a dozen traffic lights, a train crossing, a toll road, and that tangled knot where 820, 121, and 183 all fight for the same patch of dirt. You’d shrug at the chaos and mutter, “What else you got for me, Mr. Highway Engineer?” Up here, the experience is so different that it almost feels unfair.

From our house to the Will Rogers World Airport, we encounter fewer than five traffic lights. In fact, we don’t even see a signal until the terminal is practically in view. This lack of friction invites you to relax. It’s likely why I can’t think of a single roundabout in our part of Oklahoma City; the 4-way stop remains the preferred method for handling the world, one car at a time.

The Great East-West Bottleneck

However, that casual pace is put to the test just north of our house. We live near one of the last major north-south roads before the city peters out, and our local 4-way stop can easily see two dozen cars backed up at once. While the north-south flow is steady, the east-west traffic can become a genuine test of character.

You would think this would breed the “every man for himself” mentality I learned on the Texas tolls. Instead, it seems to build a peculiar kind of patience.

The Two-Fingered Salute

This morning, my wife and I were heading north to church. As we pulled up to that busy 4-way stop, I encountered a driver to my left heading east. While he had no backlog to contend with at this hour, he insisted we go first. He gave me that classic move: the two-fingered wave from the top of the steering wheel. It’s a motion that says, “Get on with it. I can out-wait you.”

I took him up on the offer. Why delay our arrival at church, even by a few seconds, when someone is determined to be more patient than you?

A Deficit of Time, A Surplus of Grace

What made this act of kindness truly remarkable was the timing. This was the first day of Daylight Saving Time—the annual 23-hour day that serves as the bane of most people’s existence.

On a day where every human being in the Central Time Zone is starting with a sixty-minute deficit, this man chose to use up a few more of his precious seconds just to put himself at a further disadvantage. “Out-nicing” another driver is one thing on a standard Sunday, but when you see it happen during the exhaustion of a 23-hour day, you know you’ve found something special.

You must be in Oklahoma.