Picking up Strangers from Airports

I had to pick up John from the airport last Saturday (aka California kid for those of you who don’t know) and didn’t have any info besides his name, flight number and airline. And by flight number I mean a random grouping of four numbers that didn’t come close to anything on the screen. And by airline, that didn’t matter since the numbers were wrong and since his baggage claim didn’t even use the correct airline’s area. (I’m still mad about that, by the way.) Anyhoo- I made a fun sign that said ‘John Swanson’ on it to stand with all the cab drivers and people with the signs that are hired to pick up people so that I could find him. Well, apparently signs are only common in developing countries and other airports that are not the Philadelphia International Airport. In other words, I couldn’t bring myself to hold up a sign since no one else was and embarrass myself publicly in a large group of people (since I like to only embarrass myself multiple times in smaller groups of people). So I did the only other thing I could: walk up to strangers and ask them if they were named John.

Yes. I really did that. The first guy I walked up to was a young, college-age looking guy so I asked him ‘Are you John?’ because at that point, that was the only thing I could do since Kate is extremely slow at responding to my panicked calls. This dude’s response was, ‘No but I could be a John. Wanna take me home please?’… Not what I wanted to hear when in search for the Lost John of Cal Poly. Thanks random strange man for creeping on me. On the good side, the next guy I went up to asking if they were John was actually John. Yay!!!!

Ooh- also, Catherine and her little brother were in the parked car waiting for me to find this kid since we had just come back from Hershey Park (poor John- we were so tired and gross after being out in the sun all day, I feel sorry for him meeting us that way). Chaz (Catherine’s little brother) received a text from their mother asking them where they were (since we kind of forgot to tell both Chaz and the parents where we were going). So they texted back, ‘Philadelphia Int'l airport. Vegas here we come!!!’ Their mom was like, ‘No really, where are you?’ And they wrote, ‘The airport.’ Later when asked about why they were there Chaz told her that we had to pick up Catherine’s boyfriend from California- which is amusing since the next weekend Catherine went to San Francisco to visit her friend which so conveniently is where John flew out of. Needless to say, Catherine had a lot of explaining to do later.

So the next time you see Catherine, please ask her how her boyfriend is doing. kthxbai.