Travel Day

First good omen: Our gate at Hobby is Gate 40.  This runs counter to Scott’s Immutable Law of Airports. which is that my departing or arriving gate is always the one furthest away from security or baggage claim.  It never fails.

Except today.  Gate 40 was the first gate nearest to the security screening.  When I got there, my friend Greg was already seated, and he told me that Bert was having lunch.  (A quick aside: if you had to guess what Bert is doing at any given time while he is awake, you really can’t do better than “eating” as an answer, except during sleeping hours, and maybe even then. In short, he eats a lot.)

First bad omen:  About five minutes later, the Voice of the Airport announced that we were moving to Gate 21.  I assumed that was going to be a nineteen gate slog, thus reaffirming Scott’s Immutable Law of Airports.

Second good omen:  It wasn’t nineteen gates.  It was the first gate on the other side of the food court.  And we found two seats right by the door to the gate.  Luck!

Southwest is now doing assigned seating, which takes the stress and strategy out of boarding.  I used to have all kinds of tactics for getting an open seat next to me: go to the back of the plane, take a window seat, and then spread my shoulders and elbows far into the middle seat.  Being a big guy, it made the middle seat next to me really unattractive to anyone other than children and Size 0 runway models.

Now, all the fun is gone.  I’m in a window seat on Row 25 across from Bert’s window seat on the other side of the aisle.  No strategizing at all.

We are about to board.  No turning back now!

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