802.11me

Excuse Me Sir, Am I Going to Heaven?

Made a big mistake yesterday. Big Mistake. I'm on the Airport Transit shuttle in San Francisco going from the rental car drop off to the terminal. This trip takes about 43 minutes due to the brilliantly conceived layout of the new airport system in San Francisco, whose overriding design theme was apparently: "we would we put it HERE when we could put it way the hell over THERE?". Anyway, so it's a long shuttle ride, punctuated by the annoyingly calm automated shuttle voice-over saying, at every stop, "now leaving X, please set your baggage rollers to LOCK", as if during the testing of the shuttle, baggage was literally flying about the tram, knocking people over and breaking windows.... as if everybody on the train had somehow magically gotten to this point of being on the train without ever having experienced ACCELERATION in their lives. "oh my god, some mystical force is pulling me AND my bags in the opposite direction?! WHAT IN THE HELL IS HAPPENING?? why isn't the voice-over lady explaining this obscure phenomenon to us as we hurtle into the abyss?

Anyway, I made a big mistake, and I also think i found out why the voice-over lady tells us repeatedly to set our baggage rollers to lock. We are on the train no more than 10 seconds, when some guy says to nobody in particular "Does this train go to the united terminal?" When things like this happen in my midst, my brain splits into two brains. There is the Evil-dick brain and the Kind-dick brain. The evil-dick brain responds only to me, and it goes first. The evil dick brain silently responds "no. they constructed this multimillion airport tram but forgot to actually hook it up to the major airline terminals...it drops you off on the tarmac. you then set your "United Magnet (tm)" to your flight number, and the magnet then pulls you toward your plane. you DID bring your United Magnet (tm), didn't you?" Shortly thereafter, the kind-dick brain looks at any one of the 12 maps of the airtram shuttle located in the car, waits a moment to see if anybody else will be this guy's friend and, nope, ok then, loudly responds "Yes".

Big Mistake. Why? because the tram was crowded. And once you answer a simple question of fact in a crowded public space, you become the God of All Facts to everybody within 40 feet. Old people are particularly drawn to the God of All Facts and are unable to refrain from asking further questions. Thus, on my way to the American Terminal, I was subjected to the following questions from three different people (these are not fictional): "Does BART go to San Francisco?" "which terminal IS the united terminal?" "why is the rental car lot so far away from the airport?" and, quite seriously, from an older lady next to me "do you think our flight will get out on time in this weather?". I'm not sure who "our" was referring to....she and I? perhaps she was hopeful that having finally nestled in next to the God of All Facts, I would now never leave her side. Perhaps I should give her a talisman from my briefcase and say "here, if you ever have any questions, ask the magic nickel and it will help you".

Actually, I shouldn't say "big mistake", I suppose. It's kind of fun being the God of All Facts on the air tram shuttle. Nothing else to do on that thing...