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Monday, December 15, 2003 Can one not pay attention and still be jaded? I had arrived at MHT early. Extremely early--three hours to be exact. But if I had waited for the next bus to take me across the state to the airport terminal, I would have missed my flight. So it wasn't surprising that everyone in the line during check-in were going to Florida and not to BNA. The woman in front of me was a grandmother off to see her grandchildren. She was going to be in Florida for an entire month and hoped that she wouldn't annoy her children by the end of her stay. In front of her was a little boy tugging a piece of luggage that was as big as himself. He asked me where I was going. "Are you going to fly?" "Yep." "Where are you going?" "Nashville." "Nashua?" "Nope. Nashville. It's in Tennessee." The little boy still looked perplexed. Nashua is a mostly residential town north of Manchester. The locals slur the town's name until it's only two syllables instead of the requisite Nash-u-a. And when I say "Nash-ville", I assume they only hear the "Nash" and immediately think of their local geography rather than some southern borough stuffed to the brim with energetic country stars. But they were off to a different gate and I was stuck at the end of the airport, deserted except for a cafe manned by two bored employees and a newsstand that was locked up. I decided to pass my time as I usually do whenever I'm at an airport, listening to maudlin soundtracks and reading trashy books--this time a trashy mystery book. I was well into the middle of the plot when out of the corner of my eye, I noticed people moving to stand in line at the gate. The older man and woman ahead of me said something that made me blink and I looked up to the television. It was on CNN and there were red-faced senators bellowing about the capture of a certain ex-dictator in the Middle East. And then before I had any time to digest anything, we were ushered into the plane--"We don't need to see your photo IDs at the gate," crowed the airline attendant. After take off, I fell into a tired stupor--I had little sleep the previous night--and would occasionally surface back to coherence when my head hit the cool window. I found more about the breaking news when I got back home, but after the first spiel, I was bored and disgusted with the news media. All the news programs were talking about it, rehashing the same details over and over again, only prepackaged in different (and over-the-top) metaphors. I don't only want to hear about teary wives at home or people cheering on the streets. I don't want all the gooey-happiness-oh-the-world-must-be-all-right from the news as well as those ubiquitous Christmas specials. I want my news cold, straight-up. But most places seem to serve it tainted. Ah well, I'll just predict that by the end of the holiday season, most people will be annoyed with the phrase, "We got him!" I know I already am just with how many times they played it last night. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:11 AM : ]
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