I’ll have the fish.

Let’s get something on the table right now: nobody enjoys the airport. I know surefire I don’t, and I know you don’t either.

You know how I know this? Because you’re human and have emotional repercussions to things that suck, airports being one of the many you constantly endure, get over and eventually move on.

But this isn’t about the many, many nocuous challenges airports pose to one’s medulla oblongata, this is about how one averts those situations with positivity. Above the clouds, there’s always sunshine, right?

By doing so, this will only produce the question of why, after all the love and affection, Townie could possibly still think airports blow.

“How could he? He says right here, point by point, why they’re tremendously awesome."

Well, by use of simple mathematics, you must conclude that if my affection equals a 90, then my dissatisfaction must be greater than 90. Probably around a 102.

(By the way: picture me writing this ten feet from my gate, surrounded by people with laptops.)

Anyway, a list:

1) I love airports because without airports the movie Airplane never becomes comic gold, cinematic glory. If you haven’t seen Airplane, don’t worry. Run over to Blockbuster, grab the tape and pop it in your VCR, because it’s old.

2) Airports have the same environment as a bathroom stall, without the heat-seaking stanky waft pervading your well-being. Nobody wants to talk to you unless it’s your best friend. You have to stay with your children. You can’t leave your baggage behind. By baggage I mean a laptop case or a steaming pile. Need more examples?

3) For cell-phone lacking degenerates like me, airports are one of the few places you can use a quarter to make a call home. Sure, it may take twenty quarters, but isn’t it worth it just for nostalgic purposes? For me, it has to be.

4) Dunkin versus Starbucks. Do I need to say more? Okay, fine. This is the only place where you literally get to see two mega-giants from the coffee world duke it out, injecting hot over-caffeinated goodness into your suckhole. East versus West. Tupac vs. Biggie. What to do? I chose to get my Pike Place roast from Starbucks with the other sophisticates, walk into line with the degenerates over at DunkieDoos and get an caloric megaboost in the form of a sausage-egg and chesse. You can actually taste the microwave in the eggs. MMM…

5)  Every airport has one convenience store that has one specific to the flavors of its local state. At that point you walk in to be proud, only to leave and say to yourself, “Wait, we have that?" You leave with $20 worth of stuff you can get if you weren’t too busy in your busy life to drive fifteen minutes. Someday, years ahead of time, you’ll see that can of New England clam chowder on sale in your local Stop and Shop for one tenth of what you paid at the airport’s novelty shop.

6) Acceptable racial profiling. I don’t know why this is a positive, or whether if it’s okay to say, or if it’ll deter readers, or family members, but hear me out. We ALL racially profile. I know when I was getting felt up by TFA officers a moment ago (smiling proudly might I add), people were saying to themselves, “What’s that white boy being checked for? Action figures? The keys to a BMW?” That’s racial profiling. I haven’t played with action figures for at least three years and I’ve never driven a BMW bigger than a matchbox car. Sure, racial profiling is unacceptable, but everyday racial profiling gets brushed aside. In Airports, racial profiling is not only used, but is readily out in the open. For some reason, you have to tip your cap to them on that.

7) So many people read. It’s amazing. You take away a television and throw a person in a situation where the only entertainment is reading and suddenly reading is cool again. Maybe the answer to illiteracy is right in front of us: airport terminals. Get me on the phone with the department of education!

Now, with all that good stuff out of the way, I can still defiantly state, airports suck.

Here’s the part of my blog where I ask a rhetorical question you never thought you’d ever be asked:

Do you really want to be that old lady in an airport with a tattoo on your ankle? You know, that rosary tattoo is not going to be rebellious and fab in the 2040’s. It’s going to look bad. Are you prepared for that? Are you accepting the way you look thirty years from now, saggy skin flapping below your cargo-capris, hanging over your pink Mickey Mouse socks? You know you’re not fooling your grandchildren, right? They know you were a skank back in high school.

Then, there’s this part, where I give a bunch of needless thoughts into your head directly from my head, only in an abbreviated way:

1) When in doubt of how to write something, go with lists.

2) That rumbling in my stomach definitely isn’t a serious case of violent diarrhea. It’s definitely something else. Definitely.

3) Diarrhea on a plane is definitely a good way to make friends with the back row.

4) I’m oft criticized for being too sarcastic. Why? Because when your baby goes godzilla near me, I reply with one of the following? “So cute”, “One of god’s children”, or “I hope to one day have children as beautiful as yours.” Sue me for seeing the positive side in every situation. I guess The Secret isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

5) Listen, I’m going to use “is” and “would” and “it’s” and all sorts of grammatical no-no’s in my blog. So long as people continue to throw misspellings in their company and product names. You know what I’m talking about Eazy Cleaners.

6) My worst habit isn’t smoking or drinking, it is, however, referring to children as “it” instead of him or her or he and she.

7) My mom likes my blog, but told me it reminds her of 60 Minutes correspondent Andy Rooney. I couldn’t be more happy and sad at the same time.

Off the Grid

Justin Townsend no longer has a cellphone and he would like to share why:

In Louis C.K.'s latest special "Hilarious" he said the greatest technological advancements are being wasted on the worst generation. This absolute truth includes me, and, for the most part, why I love C.K. Like the late George Carlin, he gets you to laugh and change your perspective on life.

With that said, before "Hilarious" I enjoyed having a cellphone. In some small way, I thought I was partaking in some generational achievement, the same way semi-half-breeding-Irish people feel when they cheers every year with a warm Guinness trying to set a world record at some "Irish" bar run by a guy named Delucchi.

C.K. spoke about being upset at a cellphone for not uploading a picture of Axl Rose within seconds. I was that guy. We're all that guy and it took one of my idols to make my own imperfections not only funny, but embarrassingly sad. I laughed on the outside, but cried on the inside.

I remember text messaging like it was yesterday (note: if I posted this on Tuesday, it would actually be yesterday). It was so cool yesterday, not it's kind of a turnoff.

Most movie scenes involving great dialogue over a cup of coffee now seem unrealistic. Say, if each side of the table was tapping the keys on their cellphone then maybe I'd be fixated on the plot more.

There isn't any huge advantage to having a cellphone besides its ability to multiply any douchey qualities in an individual. Back in the day, you only thought to yourself, "What is she wearing?" Now, you text your friend two feet away from your culprit, "WTF? white pants b4 memorial day? uh no."

You used to dread being at lunch with your friend from high school, awkwardly retorting with a sequence of "yea"s and "I know what you mean"s. Every now and again you throw in a "What's new?" even though you've said it four times already and have gotten the same answer each time. Now, you sit even more awkwardly, only retorting when the silence really dawns on you, while you text vehemently to your real friends to come and save you.

But they're conveniently not responding, even though, like, you totally know they have their phone attached to their, like, faces.

I stopped thinking cellphones as an asset, a convenince. When I think of convenience I think of being able to hop on over to the store a street away and get some syrup after making pancakes without keeping the key component in mind. That's convenience. With cellphones in that situation you call everyone you have in your phonebook to see if they can pick you up some while you watch reruns of celebrity rehab. That's not convenience, that's called being a lazy douche.

Even the inventor of the telephone himself, Mr. T-Mobile, pitied the invention.

Wait... Mr. T-Mobile didn't invent the telephone?

Sorry, that fun fact was this: even Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the phone, felt the telephone infringed on his work as a scientist and never put it in his study. Smart guy.

I also stopped thinking cellphones were a luxury. I don't want to sound preachy, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm nothing special. Having a top-notch phone doesn't make me any more luxurious than before. I'm still going to be the same curmudgeon no matter what, I'll just know that the Braves beat the Mets before you by six seconds.

And I know all the repurcusions of being without a cellphone; I've had a cellphone before. I act like I'm in my sixties, but I've actually grown up in this day-and-age. How many times have I used a cellphone for an emergency? Zero. How many times have I used it to check my fantasy baseball team? 10,000 times. I think my point is proven.

The other thing about emergencies is that I don't put myself in situations where there isn't anybody else around with a cellphone that can call. I understand the car accident situation: winding road, you lose control because you just saw Fast and the Furious Six, hit a tree. In that situation, I'm likely dead or my arms are completely immobile. Unless my flatulence learns how to dial, I'm likely still dead. Just do me a favor: don't start a memorial in my name benefiting all kids to have a cellphone in case of this situation.

The last point I want to make is that cellphones are a ripoff. I'd number crunch on you, but I won't. Let me just say that while you battle through the recession empty pocketed, this rags to riches gentleman will be at the Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Bingo dabbing flourenscent colors all the way to the bank.

Other thoughts on my mind that absolutely can't leave this room:
1) I like my barber because he carries more guns than yours. He has never asked me what I think of the haircut, as he knows he did a great job, as it took him 30 minutes. If I didn't like it I assume he'd likely trade the scissors for the handgun on his hip, or in his left sock, or his right, whichever.
2) Watching grass grow is literally every mid-forty male's dream.
4) Screw Three.
5) It just dawned on me: I havn't learned anything in a while.
6) If Lady Gaga is a fashion genius, I wonder what the next fashion genius will look like. I'm pushing for sports mascots.
7) Picking up the phone and not knowing who it is excites me.
8) I'm not one to say this, but you really have some problems. Have you tried not having so many?
9) It's been a good 90 years since anybody important was named Alexander.