The Chicago O’Hare Whatever

I just had the good fortune to spend 3 nights in the Chicago O’Hare Hilton with some 300 of my closest colleagues. Pretty good meeting, actually, although it would have been more fun if the hula dancing had been by our management team than the girls they hired. And so I am languishing in the Chicago O’Hare Airport, because, being Chicago in February, it is fixing to snow and all the departure boards have a lot of ‘Cancelled’ lines on them.

There are a number of things I like about this airport, however. The local Berghof’s café has a sandwich stand with good meats (hey, it’s the Midwest) and a very good lager (which the lady who sat across from me spilled all over the lady next to her, poor thing, who will smell like beer for the rest of her (delayed) trip). I like the tunnel between terminals that plays the United song with the neon tubes. I LOVE the brontosaurus skeleton near the security exit in terminal B. But the toilet seat covers in the ladies’ rooms comprise my main entertainment. Some lucky salesman sold the airport a system that automatically rolls a new plastic sleeve over the toilet seats for each new patron. Nifty little motor hums and does all the dirty work. I’ve never seen them anywhere else. Not as techy as the ones in the local brauhaus in Germany, where the whole seat rotates under a UV lamp that is supposed to sanitize the seat, but I would think the plastic sleeves are more protective. I could do a short dissertation on the various modern forms of Thomas Crapper’s invention, but I see my gate is starting to board and I’m trying to get out of here before the snow hits.