Lessons Learned - Time Wasted is not Wasted Time

On a recent flight, I had a two hour lay-over in Doha's airport, only to get there and find that the flight was delayed an extra hour. Disgruntled, I head towards the Duty-Free Shops to buy a magazine and useless souvenirs in order to pass the time. One pen, mug, and key chain later, I head back to the gate, armed with the latest issue of Cosmopolitan, thinking less and less of myself as I stare at the cover that featured one of the Kardashian sisters, and titles like 'Lady Parts; Questions You're too Embarrassed to Ask' - Seriously! I vow not to travel without a book again, find an empty seat, and start flipping through the pages in an effort to waste time.

In a seat next to mine, a girl half my age sat chatting away on her phone about some nonsense or another. Many, many calls later, I grow weary of her empty chatter and repetitive complaints about the flight delay, so I look around for another empty seat but to my dismay, the gate was quite full. With two hours left, and no chance of finding a secluded spot at the gate, I grab my magazine, a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and head towards the smoking room, a short walk from the gate, to kill the time in peace.

Minutes later, my gate-neighbor shows up at the nearly-empty smoking room, takes an adjacent seat and proceeds to talk to me. Was there no cell phone reception in the smoking room? With my chance of finding out more about my 'lady parts' shattered, I engage half-willingly, half-attentively in the mandatory airport chitchat, all the while wondering why people rarely engage in conversation in similar situations elsewhere, yet willingly divulge so much about their lives at an airport!

Forty minutes before the anticipated take-off, I wonder out loud to my former gate-mate and current smoking room companion - whom I learn is named Dania - when they will start boarding. She said not to worry, and that they told her at the gate - just as they told me - that they start boarding Thirty minutes before take-off. Minutes later, I start to worry again, but she re-assures me that they haven't made a call to board the plane. True. The only time she gave her vocal cords a rest was during airport announcements. Regardless, I decide to walk back to the gate, and she follows reluctantly.

We approach the gate, which seems empty now, and I start to fret again. We get to the gate only to be told that we can't board because they've already shut the plane door. Huh?! We plead with the seemingly nice gentleman and the sensible fellow says "no problem, let me just get the manager's approval and we'll get you on the plane." We breathe a sigh of relief and wait for him to whisk us through. Moments later, the manager appears at the desk to tell us that he won't let us on the plane, that we have missed our flight (while it's standing at the gate with the engines off, mind you). We argue, we plead, we beg, we complain, we insist there was no announcement, all to no avail. I claim that we have a funeral to attend upon arrival (despite the fact that the plane is scheduled to arrive at 8:30 pm.) I even fake-cry (don't judge, desperate times call for desperate measures) hoping to appeal to his sense of humanity, and still, my best effort did not avail. The evil Indian man said his final word, and decided our fate. We have missed our flight and we would have to catch the next one SIX AND A HALF HOURS LATER. There was one thing left to do, spew hatred. I turn to Dania and tell her to stop pleading with the goat herder who now gets to wear a jacket and a badge and gets to say no, by virtue of said badge, only because he can. I turn around to check the expression on the face of our evil archenemy and his angry expression and bulging eyes send a shiver of satisfaction down my spine. Mission accomplished!

The irony of my predicament almost made me chuckle. I missed my flight while both the plane and I are at the gate and while trying to make the first three hours pass by swiftly, I had to wait another Six and a half hours. Yet I couldn't decide what was worse, having to wait Six hours, or being tied at the hip to Dania for the next Six hours, now that we share the same destiny.

I get over the disappointment quickly, yet I feel sorry for Dania who had to inform her mom, then dad, her sister, then the aunt that was to be picking her up upon arrival, of this unfortunate turn of events. I watch and listen as she makes a myriad of excuses. I don't blame her; I wouldn't want to tell my mom - or any one for that matter - that I missed my plane while smoking a cigarette. I hear her tell one parent after the other a customized lie that fit their personality - I suppose - and held their wrath at bay. She tells her mom that she went to the bathroom and came back to find out that she has missed her flight. Having been ruthlessly chastised by her mom, she changes her story when she calls her dad and tells him that she went away from the gate long enough to get a bottle of water to take a pill for her "raging" headache and came back minutes later to meet her new fate. I find myself struggling to hide the smirk that made its way to my face and I find myself praying that her parents aren't that gullible. She finally calls her aunt and apologizes profusely for having to force her out of bed to be picked up at 3:30 am. While she goes through 30 minutes of calls and long periods of silence while being - undoubtedly - castigated, I send a lone text message informing my ride of the delay. Ah.. the virtues of aging and not having to answer to anyone!

After we get our new boarding passes, my need for food becomes quite urgent. I suggest to my obligatory companion for the next Ten hours (the waiting time plus the duration of the flight) that we grab something to eat. We get to the cafeteria and I examine the vast variety of seemingly mouth-watering choices offered, but I exercise my better judgment and skip the tempting choices in favor of a burger, reasoning that you can't mess a burger much. This is airport food after all, which is on the bottom of the food scale, only one notch above in-flight food. Right? Well. Never has food looked as different in real life than in the advertised photo on a wall menu. My first instinct was to sniff the meat, but I catch myself in time, not for fear that I might offend someone, but for fear of having my photo taken by some over-zealous amateur photographer and ending up on Facebook, resembling a lost mutt looking for its next meal. I could become one of those heavily circulated photos on the web with a funny caption underneath. Shudder!

I stare at the sub-par concoction that was served to me, yet remain unfazed. I remove the lonesome, limp, lifeless lettuce leaf from the sickly yellow bun and cover the pretend burger meat with condiments that I normally shun, in hope of enhancing the flavor, or rather, to mask the original flavor, all the while resentful of the calories I'm about to ingest on this uninspired synthetic mess, all the while wondering where in my life, or perhaps in some past life, did I commit an offense so grave that I were now being made to consume this? Ugh!

Meanwhile, my new travel companion had gotten over her disappointment and was now ripping through her phone book contacts informing her friends, one by one, of the new state of affairs. I remind her to chew her food slowly, as we have six and a half hours to waste. She chuckles and scarfs down her tuna sandwich while yapping away into her handset. Halfway into the assault on my taste buds, I reprove her for combining both activities, eating and talking, as again, we have six and a half hours to waste. She laughs and relays my message to her friend at the other end of the line. Shortly after, having grown tired of the continuously repeated segment of dialogue, I advise her to space out her phone calls over a period of time so as to have something to engage her for the next few hours, but she remains obdurate, repeats what I said to her friend, and swallows whole what remains of the sandwich! Sheesh!

Shortly after the anticlimactic meal, I check my watch. Six hours to go! Having exhausted her cache of friends, (and her monthly cell phone plan, I'm sure) she stares at me blankly. I roll my eyes for the umpteenth time and suggest that we go to the smoking room to get a lesson in Indian language (the GCC countries are home to many Indian workers). She laughs and follows me back to the smoking room which is quite crowded now. We walk into a cloud of smoke not much unlike the one that circled the atmosphere over Europe some two or three years ago. We rub our eyes and begin to feel our way through to the back of the room. As we resign to our new destiny and proceed to make ourselves at home, a group of Indian men walk in and I say jokingly, "lesson number one." She greets my comment with a hearty laugh that offsets my sarcasm.

I proceed to talk with Dania, when she suddenly interrupts, "Its Dana." Oops! Embarrassed, I secretly vow to give my travel mate my attention and a little more respect. She proceeds to tell me about her friends and her home life. She talks enthusiastically about her school and shares all the accolades she earned that mean the world when you're in school, but will mean absolutely nothing once you're out in the real world. She shares with me pictures of her family, her friends and a few anecdotes here and there. I discover that the kid that not so long ago irked me is refreshing in her enthusiasm and lack of cynicism. The virtues of being young and un-jaded!

Suddenly, I feel the glare of a stare directed my way. I turn to find a man with European features standing ramrod tall only two feet away and staring intently. Not one to particularly enjoy small talk, and having endured hours of it, I turn sideways and whisper to Dana, "He's looking to talk, don't look his way." Seconds later he says, "Excuse me" but with my back turned to him, it was easy to pretend not to notice. Another 'excuse me' and yet another went supposedly unnoticed, so he reached over and poked me. Hard. The man is determined! Unable to ignore his poke, I turn around, and he unexpectedly eschews standard greetings and small talk and jumps right into a conversation about philosophy and theology and theory and conspiracy.. as if we have already discussed all these ideologies and he was elaborating on his previous thoughts. Instantly, I felt like I was watching a movie that started a while back and inadvertently, I felt a sudden urge for the standard airport small talk!

He changed subjects abruptly, and without proper punctuation in his speech pattern, along with a thick Eastern European accent, it was a very hard conversation to follow. I tried to humor him, but it became exhausting rather quickly. Unable to keep up with his train of thought (if any) and unable to decipher his words through his thick accent, I settled for the occasional nod and began to observe him. Early fifties, with sharp angular features, prominent nose, and an authoritative tone to mask the empty content. Dressed in a dark t-shirt that should have been retired a few moons ago, and khaki pants that fall a few inches above his ankles. And clogs. Yes, clogs! Those held my interest for a while. I found my gaze travelling South more than it should, and I found myself thinking about those way more than anyone should! And just as I was getting comfortable with my thoughts, he stood abruptly, unintentionally declaring the end of our talk (his soliloquy) as he declared the smoking room too "smoky." Um.. Okay!

Dana and I discuss the guy, his approach, his attire, and his accent bemusedly and soon realize that we didn't even get an opportunity to ask his name as he went off on a bombastic rant! Eventually, we fall back into our comfortable pattern of talking about vague things that don't require much thought.

In walks a lovely girl, courageous enough to step into the fog of smoke that now completely engulfed the room, all to satisfy her nicotine addiction one last time, before boarding on a plane for an undisclosed number of hours. She was a pretty girl with an envious bounce in her step. I secretly admired her style and eminent confidence. She had the flair of an artist. She chose a seat by the door, ready for a quick escape, perhaps? In case the fog of nicotine becomes unbearable? Aware that we have a few hours to pass, we wave and holler at her to join us in our trusted spot. She obliges immediately and moves to the 'back of the class.' We run the usual set of questions past her, and in a few minutes, she sums up her life and we sum up ours. It turns out; she is an artist, going to do her first exhibit in India (and the third exhibit of her short life as an artist). As I always do upon hearing the word 'artist', I become suspicious and begin to assess and evaluate her talent without as much as a hint or a clue, simply because I've encountered too many individuals that consider themselves to be 'artists' that do not possess enough talent for such a privileged title. Also pretty people are rarely talented, right? But her cheerfulness and self- assuredness weighed in her favor, so I resign my usual suspicions (jealousy, actually) of her said talent and instead, observe her demeanor while she shares her stories with us. She was lively, friendly, attentive, poised, and showed great aplomb in dealing with our endless stream of questions.

As the call to board the plane is heard, she gets up hastily, collects her stuff hurriedly lest she meets the same fate as us, and as she hugs us, she makes us promise to stay in touch and blurts out her contact information as she rushes out the door, "Tala Afshin, Google me." Ah, the sign of our times! But how many of us are fortunate enough to be able to say 'Google me' with the utmost confidence that we are indeed Google-worthy, and that the results will yield more than a Facebook page?! A quick Google search several days later, yields a profile on LinkedIn, Google + and a short bio on a website by the name of Sublime Galleria, which is dedicated to the support of upcoming artists by providing a platform for them to gain visibility. I soon learn how faulty my theory about pretty people possessing talent is, and that her artwork is quite captivating!

I decide it's time for another caffeine fix, so I head to the cafeteria to pick up another latte. Not one to flinch at the thought of paying $7 for a cup of coffee, but I found myself to be more resentful with every sip, having to pay $7 for a stale, bland concoction that left an inexplicable chalky film in my mouth! Why is airport food so abysmal?! And it seems to sink to a new low with the passage of time.

I walk back in leisure and catch a glance of a little girl, perched on a chair, in a frilly dress, with her hair in ringlets cascading along her cheeks, next to her, her father I suppose, dressed in a pair of loose linen trousers, a crisp button down shirt and a seemingly comfortable pair of leather slip-on shoes. I catch myself sighing! In a sea of khaki and plaid shorts, logo tees, and flip flops, I find myself appreciative of the effort he put into selecting their travel wardrobe! In today's frantic society, the endless search for comfort, and the scrutiny of airport security, we are often subjected to the sight of dingy sweats, unflattering leggings, and vomit inducing bunions and calluses on un-groomed toes in flip flops. Amazing are the things you notice when you have Six hours to kill!

I lean against a wall to catch the sights and sounds that we tend to miss as we rush through airports to board our planes. I catch the sight of Emirates Airlines flight attendants emerging, wearing their sand-colored uniforms topped with bright red hats with veils and can't help but admire the nice, subtle touch of national identity on the Emirates uniforms. I flew Emirates several times, yet never caught that hint before. I begin to wonder how many other airlines choose uniforms that reflect their national pride in forms other than the color of their flag. I suddenly recall a flight on Thai Airways from several years ago where the flight attendants dressed in Western-style suits pre- and post-flight, but changed into traditional Thai dress once on board. I wonder why I didn't observe that then, and why more airlines uniforms do not reflect more of the national flavor.

I head back to the smoking room, to find zat our Polish friend izz back. I say hello again and sit on zee far end zis time, letting my travel mate deal with his mutterings and musings. He opens his carry-on bag, and out of it comes another plastic bag. He opens the latter and pulls out two oranges, one for the each of us. We politely decline, yet he insists. Again we decline, and again he persists claiming that they are Thai Oranges (!!) yet he seems completely oblivious to the lack of utensils needed to cut through or peel said oranges. We take one each, hold on to them for a few minutes, then slip them into our carry-ons, but he seems happy and satisfied!

After a few failed attempts at Dana's part to make me take my original seat next to him in an effort to ward him off and unable to follow his random thoughts, she opens her laptop and pretends to be busy with something important and engaging. Undaunted, he continues with his ramblings, while she continues to ignore most of his conversation. Not satisfied with the occasional nod and 'yes' or 'no' answers, he moves closer, neck thwarted towards her PC screen to see what she's doing. Busted! Feeling a little embarrassed, she starts engaging him.

No longer the center of his attention, by virtue of having sat on the chair farther from him, I sat there watching, totally amused, while she struggled to decipher his thick Polish accent and to make sense of a random conversation that jumped unexpectedly, unapologetically from subject to subject. I ignored her occasional elbow nudge to jump in and save her, so she switched to an offensive tactic, by trying to take the helm of the conversation, hell bent on self-actualizing. But Polish Peter wasn't having any of it! Her attempts were met with mockery and a raised brow. The tug of war that resulted was one of the most entertaining, utterly compelling and cherish-able moments of my life. Needless to say, you can't beat a master at his own game, and Peter is, undoubtedly, a master in the art of con-fusion.

I decide to let these two battle it out and walk out of the smoking room for a breath of fresh (recycled) air. I wonder into the duty free shops and browse through the perfume section, naturally. I spray myself with every cologne within my reach in hope of masking the smell of cigarettes that's reeking after hours in the cloud of smoke, totally aware that perfume and smoke don't mix, and one cannot camouflage the other.

I pick my selections with the help of a young Asian sales woman, when suddenly I see Polish Peter glancing furtively over my shoulder examining my selections. Unimpressed, he turns towards the sales woman and proceeds to ask her to produce the authentic version of my perfume selections. The woman, slightly irked, yet willing to ignore his remark - perhaps attributing it to ignorance - explains that all duty-free perfumes are indeed authentic. Unfazed, he continues with his examinations and accusations impishly, displaying a minimum level of decorum. I observe quietly her level of discomfort rising and she starts to physically back off. I point this out to him discretely, and he tones it down for a few minutes to regain her trust. But that only lasts a few of minutes. Then, he continues to have a heartwarming conversation with her, and by heartwarming, I mean devious and totally creepy, of course. My attempts to jump into the conversation every once in a while in an effort to convince the sales lady that we are sane, and that my companion is indeed being playful, obviously did not avail. She continues to back off slowly, until I realize she was standing 15 feet away and we're almost shouting to one another. I start to wonder if this is indeed who he is, or if this is a comedic version of his real self.. if he assume a fake identity during his travels, unfiltered, unabashed. Freak out your fellow passengers, why don't ya? You’ll never see them again.

Finally, our time has come. We exchange goodbyes and email addresses with Polish Peter and head towards our gate to board. The population on the plane seems quite scarce, and at half past midnight, everyone on the plane should be eager to get some shut eye. Great! No drunken babbling. No detectable body odors in my vicinity. No small children. I mutter a silent prayer to the airline Gods! This promises to be a smooth flight devoid of turbulence, interruption or irritation.

Obviously, I sent my silent prayers to the high heavens a little too soon. Moments later, I see a woman treading through the aisle, weighed down by guilt and three kids all under Six, and a tote bursting with toys, books, snacks and blankies. I spot an iPad and find myself hoping, praying to the iHeavens that she has three of those to keep the little ones engaged. I follow her with my eyes sympathetically as she makes her way through the aisle under the glare of many angry passengers, yet paradoxically, I find myself flinching every time she paused and kept urging her mentally to travel farther back into the plane. As I see her settle with her brood in the last seat on the plane, I feel relieved.

At take-off, Dana and I grab earphones to muffle the sound of distant snoring, and she shuffles through the menu looking for an interesting movie to watch 'together'. Really! I refuse to agree to any of her selections, fearing the constant commentary or winks or nudges or whatever it is that people do when they think that they're ahead of the plot. Eventually, she gives up and settles on some low rent rom-com and I settle on Clooney! I look forward to a period of quiet introspection. I find myself more apt to cerebrate on a plane ride than anywhere else.

I reflect on the last ten hours and grieve the wasted time. We're often told that life is too short to be wasting time, yet most of life is wasted time. Every time we get lost behind the wheel or spend time looking for misplaced items, is wasted time. All the time we spend on social media or watching Housewives of Orange County is wasted time. Every time we talk business, discuss the state of the economy, worry about the republicans taking over, is a waste of time. Every time we put energy into the wrong people or put our faith into a politician or a public figure that didn't keep his campaign promises we've wasted our time. Every time we micromanage our staff or hang on to a project that no longer looks promising, we waste time. Every time we like someone who doesn't like us back, worry what people might think of us, try to explain our self, or plot revenge, we waste time. Every time we make mistakes, fear failure or rejection, mourn lost opportunities, we waste time. Every time we daydream, speculate, search for answers, wait for inspiration to strike, we're wasting time. Every time we worried about what we don't have instead of focusing on what we do have, we waste time.

But what would life be without the occasional daydream, the satisfaction of plotting to break a man's heart, or sharing an anecdote to break the rut of the day? Maybe our narrowly defined objectives lead us to judge things like time based on how instrumental they are for us, rather than how they may be instrumental in a greater plan. I think about this new perspective and decide I can let myself be angry over wasted time, but that would be even more wasted time.

I reflect on the day's events, the people I met and my harsh opinions of them, and I realize how my opinions of them changed as we got to exchange the biggest waste of time, empty chatter. As annoying as the day started, and as irked as I initially was by my companions for the day, those interactions reminded me of how great it is to live in a world full of enthusiasm and free of cynicism, how personable a cheery attitude is and how entertaining unabashed-ness can be. Unconscious hubris, meet humility. I reclaim my time humbly, happily when I realize that the time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time.

P.S. Months later, I still can't decide if Peter is a comedic genius or an old fool.

The Artwork of Tala Afshin

Waiting..

 Splendor On Green