Dear Gate Agent Who Turned Boarding Into an Absurdist Play

Dear Gate Agent Who Turned Boarding Into an Absurdist Play,

Thank you for today’s immersive experience. I thought I was boarding a flight, but instead I was dropped into a live reenactment of Rules Without Reason The Musical.

Let’s set the scene. There is a WAIT HERE sign on the floor. Innocent. Unassuming. A sticker. But to you, this sign is holy scripture. And we are merely sinners in flip flops.

You made everyone stand 25 feet back behind it. Not just strangers. Not just solo travelers. People traveling together. Couples. Units. Human beings who arrived at the gate together and planned to board together.

Now here’s where it becomes performance art.

One traveler was allowed to step forward to the scanner.

That traveler did not have the boarding passes.

The other traveler, holding both boarding passes, was forced to remain behind the WAIT HERE sign and was not allowed to step forward to hand them over.

So there we were.

One person at the scanner.

Zero boarding passes.

One person with all the boarding passes.

Forbidden from approaching.

You watched this unfold. You enforced it. You stood by as two adults were rendered useless by a sticker on the carpet. A sticker that, by the way, had now become the single greatest obstacle to progress in modern aviation.

No solution was offered. No exception made. Just vibes. Bad ones.

The rest of us stood there silently, exchanging looks that said, “Are we being punked?” Logic had left the building. Efficiency had packed up and gone home. The WAIT HERE sign had won.

Eventually, after enough awkward shuffling to qualify for a modern dance grant, the situation resolved itself. Not because of the rule. In spite of it.

Sincerely,

A Passenger Who Loves Order

But Also Loves It to Make Sense