People of the Road, Part 20

Airports are strange spaces. The immediacy and convenience of air travel demand streamlined processing of incoming/outgoing travelers such that the conveyor security system scrutinizes anyone planning to board a plane. TSA employees with extensive reminders drilled into their heads scan the flow of people in exhausting volumes. Humans behind surveillance cameras scope the crowd for instructed cues of threats to air travel there or en route.

Past Big Brother’s gates, airports are a service utopia.

Restaurants, lounges, newsstands, coffee shops – all are rather ubiquitous within the confines of terminals and concourses. Jewelry and souvenir shops are likewise abound, but in smaller variety. The least common staple of airports, and certainly the most valuable to a certain airport clientele, are the bookstores.

Blanca works in just such a bookstore, in just such an airport. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston is host to many traveler services, but Fully Booked in Concourse C is where you might find Blanca selling books and chatting with coworkers.

Blanca was born in Houston, near the southeast coast of Texas. Like the rest of Texas, Houston is warm, which she isn’t a fan of.

“It’s too hot and nasty,” Blanca says. “But I like the people, they’re really nice. You know, in every way.”

Anything bad besides the weather?

“The Houston traffic. It’s extremely packed, and it sucks when you don’t have AC,” she says. “We do try to work around traffic hours.”

But an overall agreement with Houston doesn’t mean Blanca wouldn’t like to see the rest of the country.

“I’d go up north – all the way up north,” she says. “Go to interesting cities, meet more people. I’d like a change of weather, some snow, a change of climate. New York, maybe.”

So what would it take to drag her out of Texas?

“A plane ticket and some money,” she says simply, and laughs.

Meanwhile, Blanca is studying at University of Houston for a degree in Education.

Thanks, Blanca, and good luck with the snow!