There are many definitions of the word "friend." I just did an online search and found that the third one here is oddly applicable to my evening…
Who (besides anyone) could have thought the boulevards and airport roadways would be a bit crowded? And who (besides everyone except me, apparently) wouldn't refuse to do that? But I got her to curbside at the terminal and from what I heard folks saying out there, I'm guessing, she'll be getting through the TSA check-in around the time the government shutdown is settled. I don't mean the current one. I mean the next one or maybe the one after.
(We may be in for a lot of them. If Trump's had three this year with his party in control of both the House and Senate, having one of those under Democratic control ain't gonna make things easier.)
But getting out of the airport wasn't as bad as getting into the airport…and neither of them was as annoying as what happened next. I may be taking this too seriously but I was really rankled by a visit I made to the Boston Market outlet on Sepulveda near LAX. I used to always like Boston Markets (see here) and it saddens me that I'll probably never set foot in one again. The one I went to was pretty decent the last time I was there, a few years ago.
I placed my order — roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, side of corn — and waited. And waited. And waited and waited. None of these items had to be cooked. They were all ready in various compartments of the counter on which the crew assembles your meal…but I also noticed a lot of spilled food and crumbs all over, like a puddle of dried-and-hardened macaroni and cheese on the counter that no one had bothered to clean up. And little drops of splattered side dishes. It didn't seem very clean there.
And I continued to wait. Three people were assembling orders with all the speed of a Galapagos Tortoise. I checked the time-stamp on my receipt and clocked it from there…
After eighteen minutes, I said something to the main guy there, the one who adds the meat to your plate after others load the sides. He said, "We're getting to your order right now, sir." Four minutes later, I had it. That's twenty-two minutes — and remember, this is food that didn't require cooking. They weren't out of any of the items. It just took them twenty-two minutes to put two pieces of already-sliced turkey, a scoop of whipped potatoes, a serving of corn, a tiny disposable ramekin of gravy and a piece of corn bread onto a plastic plate.
It then took me one bite of each item to decide each was inedible and I needed to go somewhere else. Just awful. And I used to be such a fan of these places…