Bonerkiller: Guys Who Can't Navigate Around an Airport

From Melissa, who can't understand why he's a total shitshow at the airport:

He's got a great apartment and even greater hair. Obviously he's done well enough for himself to find a job that allows him to keep a nice place with a well-stocked fridge, and, even more impressively, find a hairdresser who can handle his curly hair with aplomb. So why is watching him navigate this airport like watching a baby deer learn to walk on a treadmill? It’s cute for a second, then awkward, then horrifying. 

It only takes about two minutes (or, in airport-time, one PA announcement about the dangers involved in picking up anyone’s strange bag if they ask you) to realize that there is no way we’re getting to go in the “expert travelers” line. Watching his confused face look up at that departing flights screen is like watching my mom check the Internet. 

I’m sure there are liquids and other potentially hazardous items in his carry-on not properly stored in a quart-sized Ziploc bag. I have way too much time to think about all of his potentially hazardous items while I have to wait for him to find his crumpled up boarding pass at the bottom of his bag. Get it together, guy! 

Normally he’d be the one expertly navigating while we drove somewhere, so it’s hard to process that traversing an airport carefully divided into alphabetic and numerical sections is more difficult for him to navigate than the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Can’t he orient himself by the calculating the positions of the stars and shit? Why is the addition of a few food courts, water fountains and corridors throwing him for such a loop? What’s happening here? 

To be fair, I knew he had to be bad at something or he’d have been too good to be true. He's funny, he's a good listener, and he owns a lot of tools. I guess he's just out of his element. 

Next time maybe we can lean into it; he can wear a fanny pack and pretend he's a European traveler with a poor grasp of English, and I’ll lead him around talking very slowly and using lots of hand motions to ensure I’m getting my point across. Or we’ll just limit our excursions to roadtrips.