Transient Transplant

If there’s one rule I abide by in life, it is don’t trust a man with a mullet.  Maybe that’s shallow, yes, but it hasn’t led me astray thus far.  Needless to say, after a long day of work, no sleep, and no food, when he sat down next to me in his over-sized, full-body camo, I took one look at him and knew I was not in the mood for whatever was in store.

Deprive me of sleep and I can barely get by, add lack of food to that mix and I feel everyone should steer clear of me until at least one of those basic needs is met.

Once I realized that I had to make a 5am flight back to Indianapolis my last option (other than paying a ridiculous amount for a cab) was to take the train that arrived at the airport at midnight, I was instantly dreading the amount of sleep deprivation/hanging out in airports I would be doing over the next 12 hours.

To make matters worse, my dream of camping out in an airport bar was quickly crushed when I discovered they had all closed at 11pm.

The ticketing gate didn’t open until 3.30am, so I had an important decision to make: sleep or caffeinate and stay up the entire time.  Once I remembered that I trust no one, I quickly opted for caffeine.

It’s also worth mentioning that last time I was at Sea-Tac airport, the crazy flocked to me as well.  A woman who kept referring to her “law work” was behind me with a million bags and her child that I seriously considered calling CPS to help out.  I was also confident “law work” didn’t reference the fact that she was a lawyer, she was in the middle of a lawsuit herself.  I assumed it must have been for statutory rape or pedophilia when the other guy she was yelling at, who I had assumed was her teenage son, ended up being the toddler’s father.  But I digress.  I was now aware of the level of crazy that traveled through Sea-Tac.

So this time, when a man waltzed in the doors, singing and talking to himself, I didn’t question it. I sat there, unphased, as he sat down across from me, serenading whoever would pass by at the top of his lungs, and I summoned all my elevated rage from lack of sleep and channeled it into being calm, ignoring him, and waiting for my coffee to kick in.  The fact that someone can be that chipper in the morning generally makes me a little mad seeing as I’m not a morning person myself.

That’s when I saw him.  A scrawny man with a mullet pushed a cart full of suitcases that was taller than him in my direction. A little girl around the age of two was running around him, and his baby mama came plodding along beside him, decked out in a faux neon pink tie dyed fox scarf.

And by fox scarf, I literally mean a scarf that was set up to look like she was wearing a fox carcass draped around her, but it had been tie dyed hot pink.  I make some questionable fashion choices and recently went out to buy a fur vest as a new winter staple of my wardrobe, so don’t get me wrong, it takes a lot of tacky faux fur to push me over the edge.

The little girl started running in circles and the mom was having none of it.  I instantly felt sorry for her, getting yelled at constantly by her tired parents.  But this little girl had a rebel streak in her, as she was having none of what her parents said.  Like when they told her to pick a seat and sit down.  I saw a glint in her eye as she picked the seat next to me.  Which made me laugh out loud.  And made her get yelled at.

They clearly seemed overwhelmed and to have zero control, but I thought she was funny, so I figured it would pass the morning.  Until she started taunting me with her bag full of goldfish.  I wondered if I had built enough rapport with her to be able to bribe her to hand them over.  While I am not above manipulating a child to share her snacks with me, I decided against ingesting anything that came out of a house run by Fox Carcass and Mullet.

The little girl shoved the goldfish in her mouth by the fistful.  I wondered if she was trying to taunt me.  Then she followed the mouthful of goldfish by sneezing…with an open mouth…seven times.  The mangled bodies of goldfish sprayed everywhere, including the back of the airport seat she was sitting on.

I looked on in horror, quickly losing my appetite, while Mullet laughed and asked Fox Carcass for a wet wipe and proceeded to poorly clean the back of the airport chair.  I wanted to throw up, and I knew I could never look at an airport chair the same again.

I didn’t like how they were treating her, but I’m not a parent, and I feel the last thing people want from me is my parenting advice.  I also officially lost my shit once Mullet decided to throw all caution to the wind and start cutting his fingernails in the middle of the airport.

I blatantly stared at him, disgusted, unable to look away and have some manners in my sleepy stupor.  My obsession with germs suddenly seemed amplified, as I was clearly not having any of this.  He kept drinking from a coffee mug in his pocket that he referred to as “Daddy’s drink” every time the little girl went for it, which made me assume it was just a massive glass of hard liquor.

Again, not that I blame him entirely, like I said, my plan was initially to camp out at a bar all morning.  But he had lost all camaraderie from me early on.

I grabbed all of my belongings and vacated my camp.  I knew I was being pushed out by Mullet, Fox Carcass, and a child, but I didn’t have the energy to fight it anymore.  I surrendered my seat, and went off to search for someplace less crazy to sit.  Or someplace with less fingernail clippings at the very least.