The Airport

Yesterday I was told two seemingly separate, relatively important things. First, I would be able to pick my car up from the shop the next day at around noon. And secondly, I would be driving my friend to the air port at around eight (AM.)

The math didn't line up properly, and so, eight o'clock I found myself walking out into the (quite literally) freezing morning to ride shotgun to the airport in my friend's car.

Mind you, the last time I was at the airport I was in my early teens. I've now managed to avoid it for the better part of a decade. The closest I've come to the runway is driving by the surrounding fence on the way home from a (mind-numbingly) distant interview. My last memory of the drop-off terminal came from the back seat of my mother's minivan.

For those of you who haven't utilized Orlando International in the past ever, the entrance itself is a puzzle of Rubix cube-like proportions. It can be figured out, with time, and a healthy dose of logic (some argue that there is a pattern, that has been planned, but I disagree,) so long as you do not fall pray to using your GPS (despite what it tells you, the south runway is not where you turn right.)

After you've finally figured out where the elusive path that leads to the terminals actually is, you've built up so much nervous energy that finding the correct drop off is nearly impossible. This inevitably forces you back into the vehicular maze for round two, where you place all of your Faith in the belief (and that's what it essentially equates to when driving with me) that eventually you will arrive at your destination.

Then, you (in this scenario the drafted chauffeur to the now worldly-seeming friend) have to find your way back out of the labyrinthine roadways of the airport just to find yourself back on the highway, which is where(any officer of the law or worried mother will tell you) the real problems begin. It's entirely likely that you own one of the various gadgets the electronics corporations (seemingly, in a race to cause the most car accidents in the shortest amount of time) have developed "streamlining" their products. Now we have cell phones that tell us where to go, play our music, movies and books on tape. The only way they could be more dangerous is if they also offered alcoholic drinks and pointed out really interesting bits of passing scenery at very inopportune moments.

Some of you "old pros" (I'm sure) are reading this and wondering exactly how it is I've made it this far in life if I'm having problems with a simple airport trip. Well I can assure you it's not by making rookie mistakes similar, if not exactly like:

Not going to sleep until four AM the morning you're expected to drive your friend to the airport at eight.

Not familiarizing yourself with the directions to and from your destination.

Not familiarizing yourself with your friends car before driving.

Not adjusting the mirrors, seats and various music and air-conditioning settings of said vehicle until you have already thrown yourself headfirst, salmon-like, into the upstream battle that is exiting Orlando International.

Having a nearly complete lack of knowledge of the highways near to your lifelong home.

Making mistakes like these are exactly how one (someone I certainly have nothing to do with and in no way resemble) doesn't make it past his or her twenty-fifth year, so I make absolutely sure I do not to make them.