I used to be able to turn anything into an adventure.

As I sit on my hotel bed near SEATAC at one AM, I find the idea of two different flights canceled as I try to navigate my way home from helping instruct a course in Minnesota during a blizzard, less of an adventure and more… frustrating.

There was a time I’d be giddy to have a hotel bed. There was a time that hours of layover provided a welcome break from the responsibilities of my life and an excellent people watching opportunity. Today, as I watched the masked hordes stagger by like a tribe of Nike-clad zombies, I felt sadness, moments of disgust, and a spiraling sense of hopelessness that I would ever get back to my own bed and more importantly, dogs.

When did this become not fun? When did I become not fun? When did people stop amusing me innocently and start offending me for there very being alive and daring to sneeze in the same terminal where I wait endlessly? When did I become and introverted homebody?

Maybe it’s just these last two years. Maybe everybody is me. Maybe we all hate the masks but are secretly relieved that they hide our glowering scowls and the chin hairs we couldn’t pluck since our tweezers are lost in luggage space someplace between Seattle and Spokane and under the questionable stewardship of either Delta or Alaska Airlines and their mission to make all American’s lives even more frustrating than a pandemic does. Or is that just me?

When did I forget to be grateful for free hotel toothbrushes and warm cookies at check in? When did I stop noticing the really nice waitress at one airport bar and the really tired and overwhelmed waitress at the other airport bar? When did airport bars lose their shiny, warm-fuzzy effect on me?

This is what old people are. I am old people. I ran out of ibuprofen during our perpetually extended layover. i guess old people are more prepared for me and don’t put tweezers in their checked luggage. Many of them don’t even sit in airport bars.