My earlier post this morning described the uneventfulness of the flight. That’s not to say the wait at the gate went as smoothly. I guess I temporarily blocked it perhaps as a sanity-saving measure, but fellow contributer Cutter’s post this morning about cellphonetards brought the recollection back in full technicolor:

While waiting for my L.A. flight last night in Orlando International Airport being bombarded by the inconsiderate noise and action generated from a recently arrived brood of spoiled children, the oldest of which wore a t-shirt emblazoned with “It’s almost boring how I always get my way,” I was then brought mercilessly into part of one side of Blackberry-bearing, bluetooth-headsetted man’s cellphone conversation, which consisted of him being the center of his universe while yelling the following: “But you have to quantify it! (pause) Yeah no, but you have to quantify it! (pause) It has to be Quan. Ti. Fied. Of course it is — of course it’s quantifiable! Right: quantify it.”

As the bastard continued expounding at ridiculous decibels upon the benefits and needs of quantifiability, one of the restless romping kids decided it was the perfect time to trip over himself and tumble into my legs where crying commenced in full. And right at that very moment I knew I had two choices: 1) kill everyone with my bare hands and strangle anyone else who objected with the laptop charger or, 2) get up and away, lugging my carry-ons to wait out the now-boarding call over by the saner pastures of the overpriced newsstand.

Tough call, but I opted for the latter.