Despite its title, this post is not about digital relationship, it’s about the small interactions we meet while traveling in order to spend time with our more important relationships, which are most of the time digital. Also it seems that people like to read posts featuring Kevin Bacon that are not about Kevin Bacon. It is what it is.

I’ve had a big pause in traveling, mostly because I was busy with some other stuff that drained not only my bank account, but also a lot of time and patience. Now that this part of my life is done, I’ve decided I want to travel more. Not only for the nice places to see out there, but for the great people too.

One of the largest hurdles and most inconvenient part for some is getting there. Me? I fucking love it. So many people, so many stories, so many lives, each with its ups and downs, highs and lows, travelling towards a vacation, returning from a business trip or returning home to bury a grandmother. The airport is usually filled with a myriad of people of various nationalities, educations and cultures. Everyone seems annoyed, bored, in a hurry or all of them at once. You can see from the sharply dressed businessmen to the smiling people with sunglasses going to some nice island. And then you hear people playing music on their phones’ speakers while wearing shirts three sizes too small and flip-flops. You start to imagine the people taking their shoes off in a six hour flight. Eugh.

And you didn’t even go through the security check. There’s an orderly queue that splits into an unordered six to eighteen lanes where all chaos is released. People throwing belongings in the tray, some woman yelling at her husband “move faster, dumbass!” ^[a] while he’s opening one of her over stuffed trollers and things start flying all over the place, a bag of cosmetics, a hair dryer, different shoes. I was honestly waiting for a bowling bowl to spring from there, but I was disappointed. Maybe next time.

Last time, when I did the security check, I had to wait for 10 minutes for a scan of my backpack for drugs and dangerous chemicals, only because a machine beeped when I passed through it, because I was still wearing my Apple Watch. Luckily, I made sure to arrive earlier and prepare in time, so my security check would be fast and without problems. But the lady checking the bags on the X-ray machine said that my thermal pocket printer looks very suspicious on the machine. Because there was no one else in the queue behind me and we had time to spare, I printed a small note to show her how it works, on which I wrote “thank you for your service”. Her single serving service, heh. She smiled and let me through, rejecting the small token of appreciation, as she said it’s so cute, it can be considered a bribe. Thankfully she got distracted enough not to find the drugs I was smuggling. ^[b]

Navigating with agility between people looking for duty-free bargains, two-year old kids, people waiting in queue to get expensive junk food from the vending machines, to avoid to buy the same shit but more expensive in the airplane, I found a small cafe where I could have paid 16 euros for a croissant with cheese and prosciutto, a vanilla cake and an ice tea. While I’m already used to scalping prices inside an airport where everything costs an arm and a leg, I realized the hospitality industry gets at its lowest inside an airport and it’s not hospitable at all. That cafe had four ladies behind the till, talking loud to each other, having a chat, all ignoring the customers that started to pile there. The crass lack of politeness and basic customer service of those retarded chicken prompted me to interrupt them and just ask them if they plan to serve us today. The laughter stopped and suddenly I felt the wrath of four middle-aged women that were disturbed in their ritual of summoning the Gossip Lord.

Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon Bleu hobby kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos, sample-packaged mouthwash, tiny bars of soap. The people I meet on each flight? They’re single-serving friends.

People who work in airports don’t give a shit about you, the customer. They know you’re going to buy something, leave and maybe never return there. And even if you go, another sucker is twenty seconds away. He will come and line their pockets with gold faster than you can find a toilet. The single-serving relationship seems to go both ways, everything is disposable and nothing is made to last.

Luckily, I found another cafe that also had some wall sockets, so I could charge my gadgets before a long flight. Funny how the biggest fear in this century is having our books run out of battery. But I digress. I met an older man, might have been 55, maybe 60, saw my Steam Deck charging and he told me it reminded me of a Sony PSP that he bought his kid some years ago. He then took his phone out and called his kid. “Hey Michael, do you still have that portable Playstation? Is it still working? We should give it to your small cousin, I’m sure he’d like it. See too it. I’ll call you when I get to Vienna. Love you, bye.”. He then took out the single-serving tea bag out of the single-serving paper cup in front of him and he took a single-serving sip.

I packed my things and got to the gate, to prepare to board the plane. Again the kaleidoscope of people waiting in an orderly line that cut the entire airport and impedes circulation, meeting the ones that would be my companions for the trip, wondering who’s going to be my single-serving friend for this trip. Would it be the tall youngster that’s fighting with his girlfriend over the phone? The overly-botoxed 50 year old lady that thinks she looks 25, but instead looks 75? The flip-flop guy? Or one of the parents that has a two year old with them?

Or maybe I will have more than one single-serving friend, because people never pay extra to pick their seats and they always ask for swapsies before the plane even leaves, slowing everyone up when boarding.

How “fun” it is to be seated with a two year old kid on the row behind and a one year old kid on the row in front of me? The Gossiping Chicken’s curse is real and it’s going to follow me for a while. Luckily, the kids are well behaved and actually happy to ride the plane, so they’re fairly quiet, and my row is clear so I can enjoy some music and some alone time.

I could really use some single-serving sleep to go well with my single-serving loneliness.

I’m watching a movie and I pop open a small can of Pringles. I look between the chairs in my front. Behind them there’s a little one-year old kid staring at my hand as I bring a pringle to my mouth. Oh, I see you, you sly little poop factory. I ask his dad if I can give the kid a pringle. The kid takes one and I see his little face light up in the most joyful way. You fucking little shit. I give him the entire can and his face is glowing like a summer sun. I fucking hate kids, but somehow, some just crawl under my skin. What a fucking cunt, I love him. Congratulations, little Einstein, you just invented single-serving Pringle(s).

Three meters away, one kid is looking over the window next to the emergency exit and one of the flight attendants tells his dad not to let the kid touch the blow door. I suddenly remember about some recent news article about some plane that lost a door mid-flight and shit started to fly out. I jokily ask the flight attendant if I should grab my stuff and she calmly replies:

“Sir, this is an Airbus.”

See you soon.

^[a] — I don’t know how to translate “mișcă-te, mototolule!” into English.
^[b] — I’m joking. Never smuggle drugs or anything, kids! Buy locally!

PS: Featured image source and story