Travels with The Rayman

Terminal Two at LAX needs my help.  And I’m not even that qualified, but I am confident I could help.  The problem?  There are about 4 charging places in the whole terminal (excuse me) inside the ropes.  Past the security where all ticketed travelers go to be bored to death.  There is one duty free shop which has basically perfume, liquor and cigarettes for sale.  Need a comb?  Forgetaboutit.  Need a toothbrush.  You won’t find one.  Need a stupid little bear that has a t-shirt that says “I luv LA”.  No problem.  Really people, who goes to the airport to buy perfume?  Apparently the answer is plenty or these shops would not exist.   Just not helpful to my way of thinking.

But back to the charging stations.  Great to be able to charge your phones…, all 16 of you.  And the rest of you?  You’re screwed.  Want to plug in your computer while you work?  Forget that idea.  Is not gonna happen at this terminal.

And what’s with the grey walls?  Had a sale at Home Depot?  Vibrant L.A. has grey walls everywhere.  The only bright spot is the Wolfgang Puck restaurant.  It’s walls pop with color.  And that’s where we stopped in for a margarita pizza.  Yummy.  And colorful.

So, my plan would be to wire the place for the 21st century.  Install workstations with desk and chairs.  Install electrical outlets on the floor next to seating so that people can plug in while moving on.  Open a drugstore with lots of travel items people might likely forget.  And drugs.  Advil, Aleve, ear plugs, fingernail files, clippers, cozy socks, mints, mouth products, eye glass cleaner aids, M&M’s, the peanuts variety.  Portable hair dryers,  You get the drift.

Maybe add a shoe store and accessories like scarves.  They are all the rage today.  Scarves for men and women.  And have a barbershop/hair salon with manicurists that can fix those faux fingernails.  Massage would be nice too.  Really, people.  Many people spend half the day in a place like this.  Give them something to do that also parts them with their money.  It’s American way after all.  How about a movie theatre?  Have 5 hours to kill?  Go in and catch a movie.  It could be a travel log.  Quaint, eh?  Anything of general interest.  The new Cosmos program.   Have programs that do suffer if people wander in at all times.

How about an ice cream store or a soda shop!!  Everyone loves ice cream.  With a candy counter.  That would be perfect.

How about a romper room for the kiddies?  Those poor children.  Bored as can be with nothing for them to do.  What were the airport people thinking?  Do like Apple stores do.  Have some computers on small tables with small chairs (bolted down!!)  A movie room with cartoons would be nice.  Charge admission by the half hour.  Parents would appreciate it.

I was going to say that many European airports are light years ahead of us until we landed at Heathrow.  Heathrow, not so much.  At least in the international terminal.  We spent most of our time at Heathrow this p.m. walking from point A to point B and standing in line to get through customs.  Now there is a process ripe for improving.  What does everyone do while in line?  Look at the agents working.  Wouldn’t it be great if the customs area had monitors with travel logs of the country running.  At least you might learn something.  They could be captioned so interested people could read about it.  Oops.  That wouldn’t work.  Too many languages.  Okay.  Just pictures with the official name of the spot. Followed by a map.  Matching maps could be available for the taking so if someone wanted to go to the highlighted place, they’d have a map to show the way.  Just saying.

Our ride on Virgin Atlantic was uneventful.  Plenty to do.  Food was okay.  Plenty to drink.  Plenty of people coughing and blowing their noses (an unhappy occurrence).  At the end of the flight we were not allowed to deplane because someone in “Upper Class” had a issue and the police were summoned and we all had to stay on board until the police “concluded their investigation.”  Pretty funny, really.  Did jewelry go missing?  That’s what we think happened.  In UPPER CLASS.  Too funny.  Lift up and away while lifting something off at the same time.  And the perps were the people that had enough whatever to quality to sit in the exclusive bedroom community of upper class.  Really, they had reclining beds.  What a hoot.

No problems in steerage.  What is this world coming to?

So, here we are in London, sort of.  Across the road the Heathrow catching up on our sleep so we can get up fresh in the morning and head to Heathrow to catch our plane to Spain.  Anticipation building.  Night night.

P.S.  After sleeping for hours and hours, we are now at Heathrow, Terminal 5.  What do the plebs do?  Harrods, Gucci, Prada…you name it.  This is a fabulous terminal but I can’t afford to buy anything.  Shoes, coats, purses, purses, purses.  Our flight is delayed but I’m cool because there is so much to do and see here.  What the heck is wrong with LAX?  Good grief.  So, will post this blog because Heathrow has 45 free minutes of wifi.  Yippee.