My connecting flight out of Atlanta was very delayed – but I was secretly pleased because now I had time to get some lunch before my flight. I went to my favorite restaurant on the A Concourse, carefully selected a table in the corner away from any children, looked at the menu, grabbed my book and happily settled down to enjoy my unexpected layover. 
A minute later another weary road warrior sat down at the table next to me. He was paunchy and middle aged, with the baggy-eyed look of a man who both drinks and travels way too much. We nodded briefly at each other, I went back to my book and he grabbed his phone.
I was instantly resentful because since the tables were very close together now I would have to listen to his phone call. Doesn’t anybody read anymore? I get so sick of listening to business travelers on their cell phones, especially since I swear they raise their voices just to impress the people around them with their own importance. “You tell him I want seventeen million and not a penny less,” I heard recently as we taxied to the gate. And then there was: “If Romney had listened to me he would have won South Carolina.” But even this paled in comparison next to my all-time favorite: “I don’t want Halle Berry. If Beyoncé isn’t available I’m walking.”
Next to these exalted communications my own brief airplane phone calls, conducted furtively and in an appropriately hushed whisper seem downright mundane: (“Another hairball? Dear God, where will it end?”) Besides which, trying to impress a stranger on a plane is pointless because everyone knows that really important people don’t fly commercial; they have private jets.
By this point my lunch had been delivered (and my neighbor had quickly downed two scotch and sodas) so I made myself comfortable, pretending to read my book, but actually eavesdropping on my neighbor as he talked loudly to his brother. At least, I assume it was his brother because he called the other guy “Bro” 17 times in the first three minutes before I got bored and stopped counting.
My neighbor was discussing his wife’s shortcomings which were plentiful. From what I could glean, as I pretended to read my book, the woman had really let herself go since their marriage 12 years earlier. She spent way too much of his money. She was a bad cook and a worse housekeeper. She had habits that made him crazy, like not putting gas in the car until the “empty” light came on, or reading his mail over his shoulder or insisting that he put the toilet seat down.
What seemed to irritate my neighbor the most about his helpmate was the amount of time she devoted to the kids. “She has no time for me,” he said. “She really prefers it when I travel,” I heard him tell his Bro, who as far as I could tell had not yet gotten a word in edgewise. “We have no sex life,” he whined, and he threatened darkly that he was just about ready to have a fling with Janine, the office ingénue who had been chasing him for months. “Now there’s a layover I would enjoy,” he leered, and then he sighed and downed his drink. “I really need to be single,” he concluded.
By this time I was incensed at how the harpy he had married was treating my Bro at the next table, and was silently hoping that he and Janine would get together but then I heard him say, “I gotta go, here she comes,” and hang up quickly. I looked up to see a pretty, stressed-looking woman with squalling twin toddlers in a stroller make her slow way to his table. She was considerably slowed by the multiple back packs, diaper bags and carry-ons she was dragging.
“Hi Sweetie,” said my neighbor; “did it take that long to change them? You should have let me help.”