I was on my way to the Big Island starting off a weekend of fun and followed by a few days of work. It was a mid-day flight and things got all messed up, the flight was delayed. While checking in, there was woman with an infant trying to juggle everything, so I helped her out and got her to the terminal. We had a quick chat, but this is not people I meet in the ticketing area or people I meet in the terminal, this is people I meet on the the plane.
I finally got to my seat and a couple came in clearly tourists. He was a big burly guy and the woman was clearly pregnant. “Here for a vacation?” I asked.
“Yeah, the wife here is pregnant and we decided to take a trip while we still can” he said in his Aussie voice. “She’s been sick like crazy every day but we figured once she gets past the first three months, which was yesterday, things would be better. She’s still sick though— and tired. We’ve been traveling for over 24 hours now.”
“You from Australia.”
“How’d you guess? We’re from this town north of Brisbane. We used to live in Sydney but we moved. Are you from here.”
“Yeah.”
He proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about places to see and do.
“So... did you all make a big deal of the wedding?”
“Oh you wouldn’t BELIEVE. My wife made me watch that thing. For weeks they were showing nothing else but the wedding, it was irritating as hell. Even AFTER the wedding they only showed things about the wedding. I reckon you Yanks deserve a couple of awards!”
“How so?”
“You finally found that Osama bastard and killed him and that stopped all the fucking press about that wedding! I would have appreciated if you all were able to do it sooner.”
“We tried. Hey so what happened to the rugby?”
“Oh man, you would never believe but they even canceled LIVE TV to show a tape delay, on all the stations of the wedding. I couldn’t watch my rugby games! Can you believe that?!”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I think you Yanks have your priorities straight. Nothing would stop you all from showing the Super Bowl.”
“Oh you watch football?”
“Yeah, a mate of mine took me to a game a few years ago. It was... what was it, oh yeah, a Dallas game with... oh one of those teams with, what is their name... two brothers who play quarter back?”
“The Mannings?”
“Yeah, those blokes. Damn good players if you ask me. My friends wanted to leave early to beat the traffic you know, and I wanted to stay through the whole game. Bloody lucky too. That Manning guy, I think it was, what’s his name, Eli? no the other one,”
“Payton?”
“Yeah, Payton, he drove his team down the field to win. He’s a great athlete. Still can’t beat rugby though.”
“You Yank blokes really got it right but you really should have done in that Osama like the day after the wedding. He needed to be gone but then I would have been able to catch my rugby games!”