At the airport again. Thank goodness I am flying business class and so get to benefit from the lounge. And there goes my train of thought. Derailed by the expression I have just used: 'thank goodness'. Like so many expressions we use without thinking about them, if you make the mistake of actually thinking about it, you begin to realise how strange they really are and you start to question where they came from. In this case it seems to be a form of 'thank God' without the religious overtones.
Meanwhile there's a lot happening around me.
To my left there's a large woman. Actually, when she stands to go to the buffet, I realise she's not just large, she's huge. She walks with the aid of a walking stick; by the way she moves I guess she's had hip surgery, or perhaps she needs hip surgery. One thing she does need is to lose weight. She's at the buffet and with the help of one of the staff she is loading up with pretty much everything on display. Back at the table a waiter is offering wines. He returns with several bottles and she tries them all before settling on one.
A bit later the waiter is back, this time with not one, but two main courses and a large bowl of salad. She sends the salad back. What seems like moments later, the waiter is back again, this time with desserts (plural). I can't help but see the Monty Python sketch of the exploding fat man: "just one more little wafer" prompts the waiter before the fat man explodes from overeating.
To my right is another woman. She's slim. Although she's almost certainly quite a bit older than the woman on my left she looks much younger. She orders the smoked salmon and a coffee. A decaf soy. A healthy choice perhaps, but also a double oxymoron of sorts. Firstly there's the contradiction of coffee without the caffeine. But she's added insult to injury - I feel my thought train derailing as I write this - by asking for milk that isn't milk.
The waiters are lovely. One even remembers me from my previous visit, or at least is very sweet about pretending to. They are male and Filipino and while it would be rather presumptuous of me to say that they are gay, they're certainly camp. They do a great job, as does the chef: good food in an airport lounge is not what you would expect, but the Etihad lounge is very impressive.
Two tables across there's another woman. She acts like she's used to being waited on and makes no attempt to be nice to the waiter. He takes it in his stride. A bit later the woman is joined by a friend. A colleague perhaps? The two women discuss their respective challenges in getting to the airport on time. It seems like it's a contest. "I was still packing when the driver arrived" says the second woman, effectively winning the contest. She orders and makes even less attempt to acknowledge the waiter as a human being than her friend did.
There's an older couple who look like they don't do this sort of thing very often. They both have drinks; his looks like it might be a gin and tonic and it looks like it's not his first. I don't see any food on their table. She looks like she is resigned to having to deal with him; no doubt she has years of experience.
