On Airport Lounges

When you think of "lounge," what images are conjured up in your mind?

Chocolate brown leather airchairs, a crackling fire, perhaps a few framed prints of pheasants? Well-loved and well-worn copies of British literature - perhaps Dickens - strewn amongst cut-crystal highball glasses of brandy? Witty folk in hunter green smoking jackets with those brown suede elbow patches mingling amiably and saying things like, "isn't it awful what's going on in Durfur these days?"

Well that's what lounge conjures up for me. But no, as it turns out, it's a small room unevenly lit with flickering flourescent bulbs where people chatter anxiously at top volume into their Blackberries, trying to drown out screaming children and the stale reek seeping in from the smoker's aquarium. Racks of cheezies, the National Enquirer, and cold starbucks coffee drinks abound, but not a brandy in sight.

There is a time and place for social stratification, and the airport, ladies and gentlemen, is it.