I Hate People part 1128

So I'm working at the airport and it appears to be Missionary Homecoming Day. Every time a flight lands there are scads of shiny Mormon families with their matching haricuts and homemade dresses waiting for the aforementioned missionary.

Side note number one. A few years ago the Mormon church came out with a suggestion that families wait at home for the missionary to arrive (picked up by maybe just Mom and Dad at the airport proper) so that it wouldn't become a distraction in a public place. This suggestion has apparently gone the way of the dodo.

Side note number two. When I returned from my mission (at this very same airport) I got off the plane and found...nobody. I went to the bag carousel and while I waited there my mom tapped me on the shoulder, gave me a brief hug, and said "I'll be in the car." I collected my bags and headed for said auto where my father popped the trunk (he didn't exit the car until we got home) and said "How you doin?" You know what? It was perfect. No spectacle, no showboating, no fuss.

Unlike this airport today.

My favorite parts today in no particular order.

1. The flight landed at 8:26, the bags were on the carousel by 8:41 and now at 9:21 one of the families is still here there are (hang on a sec...) 17 people not including the missionary. Please, people, for the love of all this is holy, take your inbred lookin' children who can't sit still or be quiet and go home.

2. The family who, I assume, is welcoming a missionary who had gone to Japan. I assume this because this family of indistinguible members are all wearing these...

on their pointy heads. Yep, nothing quite like seeing a gaggle of white, Mormon Idahoans wearing (perhaps) mocking headwear to salute another white, Mormon Idahoan who appears to be quite proud of his status as dojo master.

3. The mom who brings four kids (the oldest, I'm guessing is five) who all have balloons. Firstly, they arrived waaaay too early, and secondly, when (inevitably) one of the urchins loses control of their balloon and it sailed to the very high ceiling never to be retreived, the child freaked. This was followed by his siblings mocking him with their still-possessed balloons and he mother reading (I wish I was making this up) Better Homes and Gardens while ignoring her four shreiking whelps completely.

So, again, I hate people.

Sigh.