Sitting in an empty international airport with a drawling sleeper

There’s no point as such to this blog post just that I am sat in Charlotte International Airport, it is 4.32am, and I have just under two hours until my flight. Only the front part of the airport is open at the moment so I am sitting on one of the very few chairs in the main check-in area and lying next to me on the hard floor is some local lad in his 20s who asked me in a terrific drawl if I would wake him at 6am if I was still here.

Hopefully I won’t be. I should be getting on a flight to Mexico City via Forth Dallas, but there is every possibility since I am trying to get to Mexico City and then hire a car to drive over the mountains to Acapulco in time for New Year’s, that something is going to go wrong along the way.

I have picked up a terrible cold and a sore throat. I was pondering how and then I remembered last night that I had gone for a stroll after everyone had gone to bed after the wedding about 2am or so – but I had done it in just my T-shirt and a pair of swimming trunks – which were both wet because we’d all been in the outside hot tub before deciding to call it a night. It’s no wonder I feel groggy, especially I had to get up at 3.30am.

It’s been an eventful morning already. Fortunately the cab driver the motel booked for me actually turned up at 4am so that was a good start. Not so great was the fact that the driver was at the end of a very long shift and barely awake. Also the floor of the passenger side was completely worn away and I spent the short journey with my feet wedged against the sides for fear of putting my foot into some moving machinery.

Then, just as we were arriving at the airport, he failed to notice what looked like a bobcat in the middle of the road. It saw us too late, start running across the road and we drove straight over it with a heavy bump. Then, when I got out the cab to get my bags, in between him popping the trunk (oh yes, I know American lingo) and me walking around to it, he forgot about it and started driving off. Disaster was averted as I immediately set off after him and started banging heavily on the boot. I knew I should have paid him until I got the bags out.

What else? Well, the woman serving coffee at Starbucks is very nice but, incredibly, almost totally innumerate. The computers are down so she is having to do some maths. She has a calculator so it’s not a disaster but she is really, really struggling. The bloke also there is slightly better but even he took about five minutes to add up one muffin and one coffee.

I’ve often pondered how people would function if all our technological advances stopped working for a week. What strikes me as particularly unusual these days is how everything is set up to require absolute minimum effort. If automatic doors stopped working, how many people do you think would stand there bewildered? At the moment not many but give it a few years. Likewise toilets that flush themselves, taps with motion detectors and now even hand soap dispensers. All will work without you needing to do anything except be there.

It is easy to imagination people growing to expect this automation in everything in life to the extent that the trouble of having to do something for yourself becomes an unwelcome chore. It’s sort of how I feel about housework. Yes, you can hire a cleaner, but not cleaning up after yourself has a strange feel of lazy madness about it to me.

Anyway, I’m rabbitting on. The one thing I will note before jumping on my flight is that the ready availability of free Internet access is gradually getting there. I stayed at a very cheap motel last night but it had good, free and high-speed Net access. Likewise this connection I am using right now is slightly flakier but is a free Charlotte International network offered by the City of Charlotte and Charlotte Douglas International.

It always cheers my heart to see free wireless Net access. As soon as the Net becomes available everywhere you are, it will have an enormous impact on how we work and live. And just one example: whenever I’m waiting in airports, I always but always buy a newspaper to read. I didn’t bother today because all the news I want is but a free click away.

Right, with luck the lounges will now be open and my flight will be on time.