Airport Red Rover

My sister has been emailing me all week torturous messages from her travels in Los Angeles, courtesy of her Blackberry.

I keep getting ones like, "Sitting in a tank top in Santa Monica on the beach—it is so sunny here!" or "Just saw the girl from 'Bend it Like Beckham' while touring the Warner Brothers Studio!" or "Heading to a big party for our cousin, can't wait to meet Jimmy Kimmel and Sara Silverman to ask them why Ben Affleck isn't at the party!"

My personal favorite included a funny deformed photo of herself which I'm assuming was captured in the wiggly fun house mirrors at Ripley's Believe it Or Not Museum where she said, "Had some time to myself so I stopped into a Beverly Hills Salon and got some work done."

It was frightening. I barely recognized her pretty little face. I urged her to come home before she ended up looking like a bad rendition of an Orange County Housewife. Which, in itself, is a bad rendition of a normal American middle aged woman, if you ask me.

And, the final email featured her sitting patiently in the LAX cell phone waiting area for her boss' plane to land. She and I both agree that the cell phone waiting lots are a genius idea—a very simple solution to a really annoying problem. See how this comes back to commuting? Patience, people, patience.

In Atlanta, my hometown and arguably the busiest airport in the country, when you're flying in, you must either have an uncanny sense of timing or ESP in order to meet your party outside the arrivals gates at just the exact moment when they choose to drive by, or you have to have them park somewhere near the airport, which can only be described as the 'hood, only to wait for your "I've just landed!" call to get them moving. Otherwise, the driver tries to deploy a stealth operation designed to stall along the arrivals gate, idling in the lane while the Atlanta Police yell at you, scream obscenities and threaten tickets, fines, or promise to steal your first born.

The cell phone waiting lot allows you to avoid all of that, and to wait for your party, but in a civilized, uniformed and efficient manner. Atlanta Hartsfield and O'Hare airports, get on that, wouldja?

Lauren claims that at the LAX lot, all the cars starting up and leaving her one by one made her feel like she was playing a giant cosmic game of Red Rover, and she was the fat, sweaty, scary and overly tall kid of whom everyone was afraid.

She's not, for the record.

But, if I wasn't a tiny bit afraid of her, I'd be posting the fun house mirror photo for you all to see.