Fast Times in Claim Area G

Most of yesterday was spent hiding in the corner of an abandoned baggage claim at Pittsburgh International Airport while watching episodes of The Simpsons on my laptop. I stopped briefly to pick up a $10 wrap from the refrigerated shelving unit at the Pennsylvania version of Au Bon Pan, which distinguishes itself from other Au Bon Pans because of the fact that the Pennsylvania version decided not to upgrade to the fully functional, working model of a restaurant. The actual sandwich making service was unavailable because of understaffing as well as because the ovens, breads, cheeses, and other essentials were all cardboard replicas of real items. Not unlike what you find in Ikea, where they furnish their office settings with plastic televisions and computers that are merely painted to look like their functional counterparts and which can be lifted easily without effort and tossed back and forth between good friends on a Saturday plagued by unexpected rainfall, boredom, and a lack of individuals who can come up with good activity ideas. These situations are usually free of mishaps but on the off chance you pick up a real computer used by employees and drop it due to the unexpected weight things can get a little messy, in which case (when it happened to me) I fled and skipped my usual $1 vanilla ice cream cone from the snack bar.

Nevertheless, the wrap was tasty enough and it was accompanied by a large blueberry yogurt made crunchy by the complimentary granola presented to me at time of payment. Uneventful, though, my lengthy stay at the Pitt'n'Port was not. My mysteriousness coupled with the fact that people often mistake me for an A-rab, which, when occurring, I kindly explain that their racial slur was perfectly valid because my family does in fact hail from Lebanon, caused me unwanted attention in the form of a security guard stationed in my vicinity and a strange "old woman" who asked me where the baggage claim to "retrieve lost sweaters" was located.

I had my bag searched again. I really think I should have been given a "Frequent Searchee" card by now but perhaps it was lost in the mail. They say that the searches are random but I've taken my fair share of logic and probability courses at both the high school and undergraduate level and I think that being searched 16 times out of 16 (that's in the past two years) is just slightly unheard of considering the vast number of people who travel by air in any given time period and the fact that none of my friends or family of friends have ever been searched.

Well, I have nothing more to say at this point in time. Perhaps at a later date I will return.

Ushapti