20 Things to Do in an Airport During a Snowpocalypse

And now, a slightly mad, but slightly comedic interlude:

20 THINGS TO DO IN AN AIRPORT DURING A SNOWPOCALYPSE

1. Create new and exciting hashtags for use on Twitter. Recommended terms may include: #snowpocalypse and its shortform, #snowpoc, #snowpoc10 or #snopoc. Also possible are #snowetry/#snoetry, #sno-mg/#sno-mg-d, if you prefer. Be creative! You’re not going anywhere!
2. Turn your curiosity into exercise! Count people who are sleeping on the floor in the exact same position, and every tenth one, poke with a coffee stirrer. Then run. If you get caught, just tell them someone asked you to make sure they were still breathing, and add a “you’re welcome!” at the end. Or opt for a more playful approach, and when they tackle you (or have you tackled by security) say, “OK, OK! Now I’m ‘It’”!
3. Examine the nutritional differences between an Odwalla Blueberry B Monster and a Naked Juice Blue Machine. 
4. Run around the terminal mimicking the flight pattern of the “JFK Birds.” This is not my hallucination. There are at least several small birds in the terminal, who have been here every time I have been here over the past 4 years. (Next time you’re at El Al at JFK, check it out.) Clearly they live here and we are visiting in their world: what better way to pay homage to birds who don’t want to live outside in a snowpocalypse than to run wildly about the airplane terminal where they live? Suggested musical accompaniments include: “Fly Like An Eagle,” “Free Bird,” and if you’d really like to make sure your snowpocalypse neighbors never forget you, “Bird is the Word.” (Sorry.)
5. Appreciate the simple, dairy-free pleasure of hot green tea and honey that you squeeze from packets into the paper cup that – even doubled – is impossibly hot.
6. Prepare lawsuit addressing the burns that may result from your use of the doubled paper cup which has NO warning whatsoever that the beverage you were about to consume was extremely hot and required caution.
7. Listen in on Israelis’ conversations (Hebrew-speakers only, sorry). Are they complaining, using their iPhones, or drinking lattes and eating yogurt parfaits? Give yourself one point for each of these activities in which they are currently engaging.
8. Count the Uggs until you can’t stand looking at them. Uggh.
9. Someone in the airport has really weird hair. Find him or her…NOW!
10. Shhh! Do you hear typing? Someone may be blogging your experience, right now! Find him (because, let’s face it, if it’s not me, it’s probably some Mac user who has figured out to hack into the JFK wireless without paying) and ask him if he plans to “tweet it out” when he’s done. Also, if he has hacked the wireless, obtain the code, because paying $8.95 a day for internet is bullshit. Power to the people!
11. Take bets: Which closed-locked-and-protected-by-a-metal-gate airport shop will open first? Upper Crust? Wok & Roll really isn’t a morning flavor, but who knows? Duty Free? Which stores will accept your airline food voucher? Which will run out of food first? Where will the food riots begin? There are literally nearly a dozen stores to choose from, and three of them are Hudson News, so choose your draft picks carefully in each category.
12. Think way back to before your flight was cancelled. You were sitting there in the airplane, waiting (and waiting) for the takeoff that never came. But what did come was a plague of screaming children. Not just one or two at various intervals, but a core constituency, constant, beginning as a frustrated hum and escalating to “bloody murder.” Now that you’re in the airport with time to spare, blindfold yourself, and let your ears do the walking, as you try to identify these children only by their screams. (“35E!” “Hapless dad with poorly behaved twin!”) Then feel sorry for their parents – even the best parent who is able to magically calm their toddler for most of the day is under stress now. Cut them a break, shoot them a look that says, “I know it’s not your fault.” And then find a spot without so many toddlers. Because your sanity’s important too.  And besides, all of those crying children remind you that you’d like to start crying too.
13. Place more bets! Which passenger from your flight is most likely to completely lose it and start yelling at airline personnel? Which one will fashion a shiv out of a comb and a BlackBerry charger, and who will be injured first in the resulting melee?
14. Play Jewish geography with the group of Birthright Israel kids who are leaving, or who at least think they are leaving. Later, they’ll sit on the runway for 9 hours until someone comes to rescue them, but for now, “who do you know?” will suffice as entertainment.
15. Wander into the airport bar, and wonder why Eric Idle is narrating the football match, and then realize it’s not Eric Idle, but some other British person. (It seriously sounds like Eric Idle, though.) Then consider getting excited about London, but realize that you may not get there.
16. Sit in the pub and wonder who could drink such an enormous beer, let alone multiple glasses of said beer.
17. Try to identify people in the airport who could understudy the cast of “Lost.” You know, just in case. Then pray they’re not all on the same airplane. Or at least, not on your airplane. 
18. By now you’re fully aware that lots of flights have been cancelled, as people from different countries and cultures flood the departures terminal. There is no better time to take up a new language, make new friends from other countries, or engage in racial profiling.
19. Cry. Again. I mean, this is ridiculous.
20. After the most violent outburst yet by members of your flight who are incensed by additional delays, be consoled by a sensitive guy in his late 20s who, amazingly, makes you laugh as you’re recharging your BlackBerry. When he tells you he’s on his way to London to meet up with his Ukrainian girlfriend, realize that things are on their way back to normal.

 

Comments

[Janelle]

Um. Brilliant. More than brilliant. Exquisite. This needs to be published.

[Benji Lovitt]

Esther, this is one of the greatest posts ever. So good that I'm going to cross-comment on your FB wall.

[EstherK]

Thanks, guys - really value your comments. I know you've sent it out to people, which is great! Appreciate the support...more posts to come...eventually!

[Turtleman, Heathrow hotels]

I really like the part where you creep in on guy and poke him with a coffee stirrer. Make me laugh just by thinking about it.

[K. Yovela Hershey]

Absolutely genius!

[Filippa Sartini]

Well, how about yoga? Try to arrange a group session and set off a synchronized yoga dance. You never know, it may be a great way to fight the boredom of waiting during big speed bumps like that at the airport.