What’s the worst place you could possibly be at 5PM on a Friday afternoon? Your office, stuck on a conference call? The Beltway, stuck in traffic? In an elementary school auditorium, listening to a beginning orchestra concert? All three of those are bad, particularly the orchestra concert (trust me). But, none are worse than where I find myself right now – the Orlando airport.
Being at any airport at 5PM on a Friday afternoon is bad. It means you’re away from your family. It means you still have a ways to go before you get home. It means your weekend is going to be shorter than it should. Being in the Orlando airport, though, is the absolute worst. Why? Because it’s loaded with families who’ve all just been to Disney.
Based on what I’m seeing, there are a couple things that seem to be common among all these families that are coming back from Disney:
- They wear silly-looking Disney clothes, most of which seem to have Mickey Mouse on them. Even some of the dads wear these clothes. Talk about turning in your man card.
- They have goofy-looking sons who are old enough to shave but who haven’t yet been taught to do so by their fathers. All those fuzzy little mustaches in one place is a bit freaky.
- The ones without the goofy-looking sons have goofy-looking pre-teen daughters with sweaty, flushed faced. I have no idea why. Whether they’re standing in the security line, sitting at the gate, or wandering through the terminal, they all have this same sweaty, flushed look. I don’t get it.
- The mothers of pre-schoolers are all loud talkers. They over-annunciate and seem intent on being certain that everyone around them hears everything they say to their precious little ones. Enough already. Shut up!
