For every college student, traveling at this time of year is a necessary evil in order to get home for the holidays and eat all the free food you can before returning to school. It’s during this endeavor that some of us find ourselves in waiting for what seems like forever in the train/bus station or my favorite place, the airport. The period spent waiting for our trains, busses or airplanes gives us plenty of time to observe the world outside our college campuses and let me tell you, the people we don’t associate with everyday are WEIRD. It’s safe to say that every time I travel I observe some interesting traits the humans around me have seemed to acquire. While I observe an array of different traits, these are the five that I think every college kid observes during their travels home:
1. The Person That Complains Way Too Much
While I get that waiting a half hour for McDonald’s is frustrating there is no need to call the workers idiots or wonder how they even have brains. Furthermore, there’s no need to complain about the lack of foot space or how you can’t bring your giant bag as a carryon, these are things that no one is going to change, so please, do us all a favor and go rant about it on Facebook. I really don’t want to hear about it.
2. The Middle School Student
This one I personally experienced way too much during my trip home for Thanksgiving. While waiting for my food (yes, that’s where I observed person number one) I found myself SURROUNDED by teeny-boppers wearing landyards, backpacks and their Washington D.C sweatshirts that they are all too proud of. These kids were loud, rude, obnoxious and pretty much every other synonym of the word ‘annoying.’ For once, I’m thankful my school forced us to take busses when we went on class trips, it saved everyone in the airport a giant headache.
3. The Grossly Sick Person
Alright, I’ll admit, this one is me right now. I can’t seem to stop coughing so I apologize to all the other patrons of BWI who had to watch me hack up a lung and I especially apologize to the nice lady who sat next to me on the Amtrak to BWI. I really hope I didn’t give you a bad cough, you seemed like a good person.
4. The Guy Who Won't Stop Talking On His Phone
This guy is the guy who I hate the most. He won’t shut the hell up in the terminal, he won’t shut the hell up on the plane and the only time he shuts the hell up is when the flight attendant has to tell him to turn his phone on airplane mode. Please, if this is you, do us all a favor and shut the hell up, tell them you’re traveling and that emailing you is a much better way to reach you.
5. The Avid Shopper
This one is a special shout out to my mom who, in all our times of traveling together, has spent WAY too much time and money in the airport shops much to the dismay of me, my dad and pretty much anyone traveling with us. No, mom, you don’t need that shirt. No, mom, I don’t need that shirt either, can we please just go to the terminal and wait for our plane? (I really love my mom though and will often accompany her on these trips when she goes shopping in the airport, but there are sometimes where she’ll go shopping and we won’t see her for a while)
