Air Travel 2011: Hoegaarden Beers, WSJ Wrath and a New Peril: The Walking Texter

     Our trip to Las Vegas began as usual, at the Lynchburg airport.  Besides the fact that it was pouring down rain, the departure was fairly routine.  There was an interesting exchange when the young fellow in front of us in the security line pulled out two bottles of Hoegaarden beer.  He gave them to the lady checking bags and said "This is for you, it's really good beer and you can drink them when you get off."  Somewhat unimpressed with his largesse, she deposited them in a bin with various shampoos, lotions and oils and said "NEXT!"

     During our layover in Charlotte we chose two seats near our departure gate for Vegas.  There was a fairly normal appearing middle aged man reading a Wall STreet Journal sitting across from us.  I dove back into Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone but soon noticed the guy with the WSJ was talking to himself.  At first, I thought he was using some microscopic blue tooth device, but NO!  He was arguing with his newspaper!  After listening to a number of exclamations, including "Aw, come on!" and "How can that be?" I slipped on my noise cancelling head phones.

    Finally, I have identified a new threat to the health and safety of air travelers:  the "walking texter."  These folks seem equally divided by gender, are stratified through all age groups and come in all sizes.  They walk briskly through concourses, usually while dragging a large rolling suitcase in one hand and texting on a mobile communication device with the other.  They run into fellow travelers with reckless abandon and never mutter any type of apology.  They ususally growl.

    The good news:  the luggage carts in Charlotte behaved themselves this time, did not run into our aircraft or impede our progress towards our destination.