Motors – "Airport" (1978)

Going to so many places

Where the weather is much better

And the food is so much cheaper

So here’s the thing: this guy I know was at the ________ airport a few days ago, waiting to catch a 5:30 pm flight back home.

The flight was four hours long, so he needed to grab a quick dinner before he got on the plane.  But the terminal he was flying out of had only three places to buy food, so his choices were severely limited.

Air Margaritaville

First , there was a place called Air Margaritaville.  It had $18 cheeseburgers and chicken wings and other gussied-up fast food.  Plus my guy isn’t a Jimmy Buffett fan.  So he said “Thanks but no thanks” to Air Margaritaville.

The second option was a carryout that offered precooked, aluminum-foil-wrapped hot dogs and personal-size Domino’s pizzas.  My boy passed on option number two.

Finally, there was a Spanish-cuisine restaurant that had some interesting-looking menu items.  The guy decided to give it a shot.

He didn’t have a lot of time before his flight would start boarding, but the Spanish restaurant had a lentil-and-sausage soup that sounded tasty and shouldn’t take any time at all to dish up and serve.  So he sat his ass down at the bar and ordered the soup and a draft beer.

The bartender took his order, served him the beer, and then and only then informed my guy they were out of the soup.

He was tempted to leave and just grab one of the aluminum-foil-wrapped hot dogs, but he had the beer in front of him.  Plus the bartender assured him that nothing on the menu took very long to prepare.

Grilled octopus

So the guy took the bartender’s advice, ordered some grilled octopus and potatoes, and started working on his beer.

A few minutes later, a couple of young women came in and had a lengthy conversation with the bartender, who eventually whipped up something and poured it into “go” cups for them.  

It was now 15 minutes after my guy ordered, and there was no sign of his food.  He asked the bartender to please check on things, reminding him – a bit testily, perhaps – that he had very little time before his plane would begin boarding and needed his food toot sweet.

The bartender then disappeared into the kitchen, ostensibly to see how the octopus was coming.  But like Charley on the MTA, the bartender never returned.

After waiting a few minutes, my guy had had enough.  So he walked out.  

All he had time to do at that point was hustle down to the carryout for a hot dog, which he gobbled down while walking to his gate.

Foil-wrapped dogs

So what do you think?  Was my guy was justified in bailing on the Spanish restaurant?  Or was leaving without paying a dick move?

Maybe you think he should have at least paid for the beer.  But he wouldn’t have ordered a beer if he had known the place was out of soup.  Plus the beer was like $9, and all he had were twenties.  He wasn’t about to leave a twenty when half of it would have gone into the pocket of the clueless bartender, who had left him high and dry.

I say that what my guy did was OK.  Eff the bartender and eff the Spanish restaurant.  And eff the airport for not having a Subway or a Quizno’s or an bagel place where a guy can get a stupid ham sandwich to take on a four-hour flight and eat at his leisure.

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The Motors were formed in London in 1977 by a couple of dudes from Ducks Deluxe who later recruited Bram Tchaikovsky to join them.

“Airport” was the group’s biggest-selling single.  It made it to #4 on the British pop charts but sank without a trace in the U.S.

Here’s “Airport”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: