Business Travel Excitement...Not!

I do a lot of business travel. Last week I was in San Francisco. Two weeks ago I went to St. Louis and the week before that I was in Florida. Next week I’ll be in New Jersey. I know, travel to places like New Jersey may seem glamorous to people that don’t travel very often, but the sad truth is this: travel can be very boring. Mind numbingly so. Driving through traffic to the airport, taking your shoes off and emptying your pockets through security, and waiting for your flight to leave, eats up a lot of time. Then there’s the actual flight plus more hours spent in hotel rooms staring at the four walls.
Between you and me, the only way to get thru the drudgery of business travel is to be creative. For example, did you know there are way more good looking women in America than men? I know this because while I’m sitting at the gate waiting for my plane to arrive or sitting in my assigned seat watching other passengers board the aircraft, I rate each and every man and woman I see on a scale of one to ten. The latest scores, which I hope will be released by Popular Mechanics next month, clearly reveal the difference in looks between men and women. The average score for women of all ages is 8.9. The average score for men? Negative 6. Actually the men’s score would have been lower had I not given out a couple of 9s early one morning. When I foolishly mentioned my pastime to a couple of needy co-workers, they demanded good scores.
There are, of course other ways to beat back boredom, eating for example. Every airport has plenty of fast food restaurants and candy racks plus a store dedicated to local specialties. In Nashville, they offer Moon Pies and Goo Goo Clusters, delicious but not necessarily good for you. Apparently, not one city in America is known for its salads. Why is it we have such strict security forces in airports to protect us from terrorism in the skies but no nutrition police to protect us from too many calories in the food court? Judging by the food available in airports it’s probably better to be pulled out of line as a suspected terrorist so you can spend a few nights in jail. The food is better for you.
Sometimes when I’m really desperate, I roll the dice and engage a seatmate in conversation. Over the years I’ve calculated the odds of being held conversational hostage during a flight lasting 2 hours. Its even money you’ll be forced to pretend you’re listening to some guy named Len describing the novel he’s written in excruciating detail. And, by the way, if you happen to be seated next to a guy you rated a 2, don’t be surprised when he leans over to you after his third beer and makes a confession. “One of these days I’m gonna open the emergency exit door at 37,000 feet. Man that’d be cool” Hey, if the flight still has an hour or more to go I’d consider egging him on.
Of course if you’re a guy seated next to a woman you rated a 10 it doesn’t matter what she talks about. She says, “Oh I just love my cats! I have 74 of them. Would you like to know their names? There’s Fancy girl, Fluffy and Clytemnestra, so many! Trust me on this: A guy could be so allergic that a mere picture of a cat sends him to the emergency room, and he would say, “Wow, I love cats. Imagine 74 cats. I would love to meet them, especially Clytemnestra.”
Sadly it’s not that easy to engage people in conversation during a flight anymore. People travel today with all kinds of boredom suppression gadgets, Kindles I-pads. I love people who carry these tiny I-pods connected to Bose head sets the size of Minneapolis. Any bigger and they would have to buy two seats. In fact looking at what people bring on board these days is another way to fight tedium. The stuff people carry on board is getting really big and harder to cram into the overhead compartment. A couple of weeks a go I saw a guy try to board with his own single engine Cessna. He got turned down but only because the lady in the seat next to him brought her cats with her.

Copyright Len Serafino 2010. All rights reserved.