For some reason, bacon always seems to be at the center of my world. I like bacon, but I’m talking about ‘bacon stories‘ popping up right in front of me. This time, I was in a hotel near the Denver airport, and I standing at the end of the breakfast buffet, in front of a little ‘we make it while you wait’ omelette stand. I had just given the woman manning the station my order, when another woman approached us. The woman had long gray hair, and her clothing looked crumpled, almost as if she had slept in them. She had slippers on her feet and a stern expression on her face.

In a garbled, hard to understand voice, she asked, “Do you have more bacon?”

The woman behind the counter asked politely, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t understand what you said. What would you like?”

“Bacon! Do you have more?”

Again, the woman making my eggs couldn’t catch what she was saying. I interrupted, and explained, “She wants to know if you have more bacon. I guess the bacon container is empty on the buffet.”

The crumpled woman glared at me.

“If you wait a moment, I can fill it up, but I need to finish making this omelette first.”

The woman turned around without saying anything else, and walked back to her table. As she sat down, I noticed that she had a small plate on her table that had at least 4 or 5 slices of bacon on it. I turned to the woman who was now finished making my omelette, and said, “Perfect timing. I’ll walk over with you, I’d like some bacon, too.”

I waited near the buffet, as she walked into the kitchen with the empty bacon tray. When she returned, I stepped out of the way, so she could maneuver the tray into position. As I stepped back, the gray-haired woman stepped in front of me, insuring that she was ‘1st in line’ to get the bacon. I watched her pile at least 40-50 slices of bacon into a towering mound at the center of the dinner-sized plate that she was holding.

Perplexed, I waited for her to finish, and then I stepped forward and served myself. When I my finished breakfast, I got up to leave and when I walked by her table, I noticed that the bacon pile was considerably smaller–by about half! Her table was set for one place, and the seat across from her empty–she had eaten it all by herself!

Wow–I like bacon, but she must love it!

I witnessed something upsetting (at least to me) today. On my way to my gate, I decided to get a coffee. I weaved through the lane markers, which in this case, was retractable webbing stretched between poles, until I was next in line. There were about ten people behind me, and I saw an airport employee push an elderly woman up to the counter beside me.

I was just about to indicate to the lady that she should place her order before me, when the woman behind me yelled out, “Excuse me, excuse me—do you see that there’s a line here?” Her tone was loud and abrasive.

The man pushing the wheelchair ignored her. The woman in the wheelchair who was probably in her late 70’s or early 80’s, glanced over at her, but didn’t respond.

You could visually see that the woman in the chair couldn’t control the movement in her extremities, as her legs and arms were twitching and moving. The woman behind me continued obliviously, “What’s the purpose of standing in a line, if you can just cut to the front of it?”

I was burning mad and was deciding what to say, when the woman in the wheelchair looked directly at her and calmly said, “Honey, I didn’t ask him to push me to the front of the line, it’s his job. He’s supposed to get his passengers through the airport as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The woman behind me babbled something that I couldn’t quite hear, but it was clear that her aggressive behavior was squashed momentarily.

The woman in the wheelchair turned to the man pushing her and asked if she could get him a coffee. He declined her offer with a smile.

She looked to me and said, “I’m sorry, I know you were next in line.”

I smiled back, and replied, “Oh, don’t worry about it—go ahead and order.”

She looked at me with appreciation. When her coffee was ready, I handed it to her, because the man behind the counter couldn’t reach out far enough.”

Where is human kindness? Why couldn’t that woman realize how hard it would be to maneuver a wheel chair through the narrow lanes? Does she mouth off when they allow people with disabilities to board the plane first?

Let’s work on being kinder and gentler! I was disgusted.

Yesterday, I arrived early to the airport for my flight to Frankfurt, Germany. When I got to my gate, I noticed that the only place to charge my phone was at a free-standing podium that didn’t have any seating near it.  I plugged my phone into one of the few remaining available outlets, and sat down next to a woman who was sitting on the floor, surrounded by her luggage, and tethered to the podium by her phone cord.

As you might imagine, we began to chat. I found out that, like me, she was a teacher. She also told me that she was returning from Munich, but because of delays, she had missed her connecting flight to the west coast. She had already been waiting for a long time, and she seemed to enjoy the company. 

Before long, we started swapping travel stories, and we ended up laughing and carrying on like we had known each other for ages. She told me a particularly funny story about a bathroom emergency that she had experienced in Thailand. I know that on the surface, a story about about a bathroom emergency doesn’t sound entertaining, but it was!

At one point, she mentioned that her fiancé was going to pick her up from the airport, so I asked the typical questions: How long have you been engaged? When are you getting married?

I finally asked, “How did you meet each other?”

A funny look crossed her face before she replied, “We met on an online dating site called, Farmers Only.”

Before I could respond, she said, “I’m not a farmer.”

“Is he?”

She shook her head from side-to-side and we both laughed. 

“So you joined because you’re attracted to farmers and wanted to meet one?”

“Yes, something like that.” She laughed again. “It’s for country people, too. Sometimes it’s hard to meet someone when you live in a rural area. Before I met my fiancé, I dated a farmer who I had met on the site, but he was shorter and skinner than me…so that was a real turn off!”

Once again, we were laughing!

Later, I looked up the ‘Farmers Only’ site, and their tagline is—City Folks Just Don’t Get It!

Earlier tonight I went to dinner at Subway. As I ate, I dug my book out of my bag and began to read. After reading for awhile, I looked up from the page and noticed that there was only one other person in the store. He was at the table next to me, and he too, was reading.

What are you reading?” I smiled and held up my book, and continued, “I don’t see many people reading in public anymore—-well, books that is—not electronics.”

He returned my smile and replied, “You’re right—I almost never see other people reading like I do. I noticed right away that you had a book.”

We began to chat, and before I knew it, I realized that we had been talking for at least 20 minutes. It was time for me to get going, so I stood up to throw my trash away.

He stood up as well, and extended his hand toward me. We shook hands and officially introduced ourselves. He said, “I really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks.”

I laughed. “Did you notice that we didn’t even talk about what we were reading?”

“Yeah, I noticed,” he replied warmly. “I’ll tell you what else is rare, besides people not reading in public…a stranger being friendly enough to start a conversation. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve chatted with someone for this long that I didn’t already know.”

“Thanks—I enjoyed talking to you, too.”

I’ll probably never see him again, but he’s right. We need to put our phones down and connect with real people in a face-to-face way. It’s good for our souls.