As many of you watched the debates, I watched my boss bib wine at the Outback Steakhouse in Nashville. We spent the evening discussing dog training, kid training and our respective failures in these areas. After dinner, I drove us back to our seedy little rooms at the local Comfort Inn. I thought of it as the fun house; the floors were uneven, carpet askew and the halls smelled like marijuana. I mentioned the odor to my boss the next morning. She hadn’t noticed.

Meetings on the following day went about as well as one could expect when one’s boss is present. Getting there is a lot like our appointments. I drive, she coaches. She said little about my driving this time, and I was grateful. On our trip to Buffalo in February, she made several negative comments, yet refused my repeated offers to take the wheel. Since she’s just sitting there, I suggested that she navigate. No-could-do. She can’t see out the windows while wearing her reading glasses, and she can’t read a map with them off. After our meeting in Nashville, I was to drop her off at the airport. Her flight back to Salt Lake left several hours before my flight to Boston. Needless to say, I navigated (without help) to the airport in great haste, and tore out of there to get some breathing room, sans boss.

After driving through some lovely wooded areas outside of Nashville, I filled the car’s tank with gas, and returned to the airport around the time my boss’s flight was lifting off the ground. It was going to be a long evening. I was headed to Atlanta, where I would then catch my flight to Boston. It seems that I never have a direct flight anywhere. The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. There’s not much that can happen in thirty-five minutes besides taking off and landing.

For an airport terminal, Atlanta’s E is about as good as they come. Generally, the important international flights arrive and depart from terminal E. In a way, this was the highlight of the trip. I found myself sitting somewhat close to the woman’s restroom. Within ten minutes, I noticed the sound of a broken suitcase wheel, loudly complaining as its owner pulled it along. Atlanta’s terminal E does not have much carpet, so the “clack clack clack” of the broken wheel seemed to announce its owner’s arrival. She was a well-dressed middle aged woman wearing a navy blazer and dress slacks. She was also visibly irritated by her disagreeable companion. She walked past me, and clack clacked her way right into the bathroom. I could hear her turn the corner, and I realized that her nasty little luggage was betraying nearly everything she was doing in there, even though she was well hidden from sight. Indeed, I thought I could tell when she turned left and right. I could hold it back no longer, and I began laughing uncontrollably. There was no TV in sight, nor book in hand. I must have been a sight in my own right. Distracted by my own laughter, I somehow lost the suitcase. It could no longer be heard trailing its unhappy owner in the ladies room. Just as I began training my ear towards the bathroom, the woman emerged, suitcase stuffed under her arm. She didn’t look any happier, and she surely wasn’t. The suitcase had complained without refrain or remorse, and had thus earned its free ride through the airport. As she exited, our eyes briefly met, and I looked away, ashamed. I had been a peeping Tom, or perhaps a listening Sammy. If this name were to catch on, I would be forever disgraced. Consider what I dug up out of Webster’s:

Peeping Tom, first recorded around 1796, has become a term for a voyeur, not at all a pleasant fate for this legendary fellow. As W.H. Auden has said, “Peeping Toms/are never praised, like novelists or bird watchers,/for their keenness of observation.”

I dislike overused clichés. Instead of using the all-too-familiar “squeaky wheel,” I’m going to use the “clacking wheel” in its place.
Sam: “Serves him right. You know what they say about the clacking wheel.”
Biographer: “Clacking wheel? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Sam: “Well then. I have a story for you…gets carried through the airport by its owner...keenness of whom has long been overrated

I think I’ve had enough fun for one night.

Sam