Day 0, July 24: Orlando Airport

 I mapped out the Great Circle route from Orlando to Abu Dhabi. Disappointingly, it's not over Africa, but over the British Isles, Northern and Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iraq, and down the Gulf.

Day 0 was not inordinately grim. Our cheap off-airport parking came with an overcrowded shuttle (14 people in a minivan). The security lines at Terminal C in Orlando were moderate (25 minutes) and we got to use the airline lounge, with free rot-gut liquor.

Indians being annoying on airplanes.

I’ve never had recourse to a wheelchair to board an airplane. Once, American Airlines sent a wheelchair to meet me, in London I think it was, but that was because they had misread my wish for a vegetarian meal ("v") for a wheelchair (“w”). The British gate agents thought it was hilarious, but that was likely because they didn’t like American Airlines very much. AA also tried to feed me Salisbury steak, which looked like cheap steak stomped on by someone wearing football cleats. Did not eat.

So, waiting for our Emirates flight to Dubai, this evening, we couldn’t help noticing that phalanxes of wheelchairs were lined up, each carrying a dusky citizen of the sub-continent. We’d previously seen many of said citizens gadding about the terminal, apparently sound of mind and body, but they expected to be conducted on board in a wheelchair. There were at least 24 of them. Here’s a picture.

What is this? I wondered. A sad explosion of polio among our Hindu friends? No. Apparently, it’s a new trend down there south of the Himalaya. Having discovered that it costs nothing to have one’s booty and baggage loaded on one’s flight by an attendant, dozens of them now opt for wheelchair-assisted embarkation. I suppose the scam is harmless, except that the rest of us pay for the cost of said assistance, and it takes forever to load them all on board. 

And it’s just one more recent instance of Indians being gratuitously annoying, though not, I suppose, as bad as that nasty little religious fanatic Narendra Modi ordering assassinations of his political enemies on our soil, or calling me up three times a day, trying to sell erection drugs. But annoying nonetheless. 

Stop being so annoying, Indians. There are a billion of you, I understand, so even if each of you is only a little annoying, the sum total is overwhelming.