Announcements

For a solid hour Friday morning I could not get through a sentence. This is because I was in an airport. I was headed to Wilmington, North Carolina, along with my brother and his longtime girlfriend. I had not seen them for a while. We had a lot to catch up on.

But as we sat at the gate at 7:15 a.m., waiting to hear our boarding call, coffee in hand, minds just beginning to function, we literally could not get through a sentence without getting interrupted by another announcement.

There would be an announcement for a flight that was boarding. It would end. We would say two words, and then there would be an announcement from TSA about airport security. It would end. We would nervously begin our sentence again, only to be interrupted yet again, by another flight announcement. We laughed at it. it was funny, for sure, but there was hostility beneath them giggles.

Once on the place something in a Times headline made me want to tell my brother’s girlfriend a story. I turned to her, began, and then they began the in-flight security announcement. I stopped speaking. The announcement stopped. I began to speak again and amazingly, the announcement began as well.

Welcome to the communication age.