Sleeping in Airports

Airport Adventures: San Francisco Airport

by Wil

in the back pocket of his cover-alls and produced a small screwdriver and a huge grin.

My wife and I left the East coast early last June on our way to beautiful Hawaii. We arrived in San Fran at about 11:30 in the evening with a flight that departed at about 6:00 the next day. We looked at each other and said, “Comfort can wait, lets crash here.”
So we found a quiet corner in the arrival section and piled our luggage so as to give us some privacy. We pulled up our two alotted three-seat-with-arm-rests and tried in vain for an hour and a half to drift off. Then the cleaning crew descended upon us like a plague. Vacuuming, dusting, and obscenely loud obscene discussions garnered a look from my new bride that I hope I never see again. One of the cleaners was struck by the sheer grotesquness of the look and came over. This fella, whose name is “Henry”, weighing in at well over 300 pounds and a good head taller than I or my wife, lumbered over and asked where we were headed. Now, I realized that he was in no way connected to Security, and was in no way entitled to the privilaged information he requested. Lucky for him my wife doesn’t see things that way and lit up with the words “Hawaii” and “Honeymoon.” Henry then began to tell us of his ten year career of cleaning the airport, sometimes vacuuming, sometimes dusting, always having loud discussion that concerned obscene topics. He gave us a give, though. Noticing our apparent lack of comfort, he reached in the back pocket of his cover-alls and produced a small screwdriver and a huge grin. Moments later our three-seats-with-armrests iron maidens had been stripped of their vestigial armrests. Henry gladly disposed of the armrests, ensuring us that he would replace them in the morning after we left but before his shift was up. We thanked this God-send of a man and promptly drifted off. Security did stop by, but after inquiring whether we had removed the armrests and telling us that that is a crime. We played dumb and after an extended search for said armrests were mostly ignored for the rest of the night.”

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