Follow The Guy With The Brown Suitcase

I'm outside Chicago Ohare airport, havin' a smoke and contemplating my next move.

See, I had missed my connecting flight home and was forced to stay over.

My room was booked for the night and I needed to locate the shuttle bus station to catch a ride to the hotel.

By the way, this was my first visit to the WINDY city and Ohare airport.

Ohare is monstrously HUGE, busy and unforgiving.

There are NO smiling faces in recognizable uniforms to point weary travellers in the right direction.

I had to figure this out for myself so I did what any WARRIOR would do and asked the first guy that walked by.

"Excuse me buddy. Can you tell me where the hotel shuttle bus station is?" I say

"Right down there." he replys. "See those flashing lights?"

I look up and over 4 lanes of traffic, a wide median, 4 more lanes of traffic, through some trees and down a small embankment.

BINGO!

There's the station, easy peasy.

I thank the lovely gentleman and off I go.

Getting through the first four lanes of traffic was a cinch cause there was, hold onto your hat, a clearly defined "cross walk" painted on the road.

The next obstacle posed a bit of a problem.

4 lanes of cars, whizzing by, nothing painted on the road or, god forbid, any pedestrian crossing lights.

So I'm standing on the curb thinking about NOT getting hit by a car when, out of the corner of my eye, I spy a guy coming up on my right side.

He gets next to me on the curb and I notice he's pulling a brown suitcase.

This is where it gets "weird".

This guy looks both ways, hesitates but a moment and steps into the first lane of traffic!!

Me, I'm fairly horrified and watch with fascination as the traffic yields to this MAN GIANT and he makes his way towards the second lane of traffic.

The cars on the right slow down, the cars on the left are pulling away and man, it's like watching MOSES PARTING THE RED SEA!!

At this point it finaly becomes obvious to me that this guy BELIEVES he's getting across that road unscathed and he has FAITH cause, no doubt, he's done this before.

I make my move off the curb, scoot right up behind my MOSES guy and follow him the rest of the way across.

Just before we make the curb on the far side, he notices me, we make eye contact and I say,

"I'm following you, my friend, cause you look like you KNOW what you're doing."

He chuckles and heads off through the bushes and down the hill.

There's a moral to this story and it's this:

Follow the guy that BELIEVES, has FAITH in the fact that he KNOWS what he's doing and that no one will be hurt along the way.

And...

If it's at all possible, arrange your travel plans to EXCLUDE connecting flights through Ohare Airport.

I've heard Denver is brilliant!