Date: March 3rd, 2010
On Wednesday, I flew back to DC from San Francisco. While I was in San Francisco, I was reminded of why I'm not the biggest fan of California. Now, don't get me wrong - there are things I absolutely adore about California. I think it is a great place. However, there are also things that really bother me about it. When I was walking around on Monday and taking in the sights, one of the stores I stopped at sold novelty magnets. I bought a couple for gifts and for my fridge, but I noticed one magnet in particular. "There may not be a Heaven, but there is a San Francisco". Wait. What? Then I saw another one. "There is no life outside of San Francisco".
See... that's what bugs me about California. It is a great place, but man do the people already know that. There is no value in modesty there. There's pride whether or not the job is well done and if you don't leave a tip, well, there's something wrong with you - not the service. There are wonderful and awful people everywhere in the world, so please don't think I'm saying San Francisco is all bad people - its definitely not. But there is a collective sense of entitlement there that drives me up a wall. That was a realization I was first putting into words when I got to the airport and walked around centuries old jade statutes from China that were, you know, being used as display pieces there.
I walked past two "gourmet" airport restaurants on my way to the gate my flight was leaving from and shook my head. In retrospect, all airports have restaurants like that, but like I said, I was having an epiphany so... just about everything was being seen through that light. I walked past high-heeled housewives-of-Orange-County and purse-dog owners galore, just trying to find space to breathe. When I finally found it, I plopped down with a soda, bags around my feet, including presents for friends and whatnot, and pulled out a (by tech standards) old version iPod Touch to play games and wait for the flight.
I also did some more people watching. I saw business men in finely pressed suits and what appeared to be college students going home for break. I saw some people that looked profoundly unhappy and, by contrast, a lovely looking family with a 16-month old baby. I smiled at the baby and quietly hoped they would either know what to do when the plane took off or be sitting far away from me. As I started to space out I noticed a woman sitting off to the side of the gate area and I made a snap judgment about her.
She was tall, thin and very pretty. She had knee high boots on, a cute little roller bag, what looked like a designer sweater and a coffee and new-model cell phone. She sat down with graceful, controlled mannerisms. She looked like someone who danced or performed - she knew how to move her body a certain way without a lot of effort. At least that's how it appeared from a distance. She was off in her own world, her hair was perfectly done and, in all seriousness, those boots did NOT look comfortable. I took one look at her and thought "she's probably a bitch".
Now. I have a problem with being judgmental. I'm working on it. I even tried to talk myself out of that initial snap judgment I made about the woman in the airport. The problem is, I'm right in my judgments sometimes. People who I think will hurt my friends have ended up doing so and I saw it before it happened. Makes it hard to break the habit when I don't want to see people I love get hurt. Every once in a while I'm so completely dead wrong that it chips away at the judgmentalism though - and Wednesday was one of those days.
With the exception of people holding a door for me as I walk up, I cannot think of a time when a stranger has offered material help to me and I've accepted. Its a rare thing nowadays to just stop and offer to help someone you don't know and, with all the badness in the world, its even rarer for people to accept it. So when I got myself in trouble at the gate, I assumed I'd be on my own figuring a way out of it. The man at the gate had made an announcement that they were enforcing the two bags policy and, having bought a present for my friends at the airport, I now had three. My two bags, plus the shopping bag. Worse than that - the bags each had something breakable in them and didn't close all the way (it was a three day trip - I packed light).
His response to my predicament? Well, you could board the plane LAST and we'll just see if there's space. In other words, the counter agent at Virgin America in San Francisco was rude and uncooperative. Remember that when you fly. As I tried to talk him into being the least bit helpful (a futile effort), I heard a woman's voice behind us. "Hey, I fly a lot, I bet we can get that stuff down into two bags". I turned my head to see the woman I'd made that horrible snap judgment about, sitting forward in her chair, ready to help. I was so pleasantly surprised at her and frustrated with the gate agent that I accepted. We spent about five minutes rearranging my bags - something she did not have to do with her time - so I wouldn't get hassled getting on the plane.
My stubborn head persisted in wanting to believe what I'd first thought - the shallow determination I'd made from afar almost an hour ago. Surely, it justified, I was right - its just that she doesn't like the airlines either. That's when I had a moment of God shaking me by the shoulders and essentially saying "no, seriously, you were just wrong". As we stood, waiting to get on the plane, on the gate-bridge thingy, she caught a glimpse of that adorable baby I'd seen in the terminal. I stood behind her and watched as she spent a solid 5 minutes playing peek-a-boo with that baby. And not just "cover your eyes and smile" peek-a-boo. We're talking full-on, hide behind people and pop out peek-a-boo. That's like the Cadillac of peek-a-boo games. She was consistently happy and selfless with all the people around her.
Every part of the judgment I'd made about her was completely wrong. Not just a little wrong - completely wrong. It was a humbling experience, to say the least. Happily though, a little bit of that judgmental wall that I'm trying to break down, came tumbling away, thanks to the kindness of a stranger in an airport. Well, that and peek-a-boo.
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