Recently I heard that the homeless are now hitting the airports, but I found a few problems with this rumor.

This past weekend I went to O’hare Airport to meet my sister who had flown in from Boston. Since it is the nature of all airlines to be five hours late, I had a bit of a wait.

As I looked around I agreed that an airport is the perfect place for the homeless because it seems to provide all the human needs—chairs or benches to sleep on, available food and a roof to keep the rain and wind away.

I wandered over to the available food at a snack bar. I glanced at the menu that listed everything from doughnuts to tunafish sandwiches. I decided to choose the least expensive item, a $1.20 doughnut.

I then realized the homeless, being in the economic state called poverty, probably could not afford to live one day in the airport, so I trashed that theory.

About then I felt the call of nature and went on a search for the resting facilities.

After resting, I went to the sinks to wash up but found no knobs on the faucets to turn the water on. Suddenly, the water began to spurt out. Thinking this was my first experience with a poltergeist, I jumped back. The water stopped.

Upon closer inspection, I realized I had been struck by one of today’s modern conveniences, an electric eye that turns on the water whenever someone comes near the sink.

This brought to mind the elite in society who need all of these “conveniences” just to live. Another theory struck: how about moving the wealthy into the airports?

I began to put together this theory and remembered the “doorways through hell” that everyone needs to go through to get to their gates.

The sirens attached to these doorways seem to always go off the one time you forget you’re wearing your uncle’s prized pinky ring—the one shaped like the moose from his old lodge and is made of metal. This security would certainly pass the standards of the wealthy jewels.

Accompanying the doorways are the “all seeing animated mouths” better known as the conveyer belts with X-ray cameras.

Since the wealthy never want you to know what they are up to, maybe the security cameras wouldn’t fit into their lifestyles; scratch another theory.

Once a person has been humiliated by the screaming sirens echoing thoughout the airport and felt violated by the security gazing into his/her (for the liberals) one carry on bag, the contents of which are being transmitted to millions of homes via satellite, he/she (ditto) quickly scurries away to his/her gate.

My sister’s gate happened to be down an escalator and through a tunnel with moving walkways. On the ceiling neon lights were flashing on and off and in the backround I could hear a soothing voice telling me to “keep walking.”

This seemed to be a psychologist’s heaven. I thought of those poor lab rats used in experiments, then I thought of a gerbil I’d seen in a pet store…the DeKalb pet store and downtown DeKalb…NIU…my townhouse…home and then it struck!

Why couldn’t a normal everyday Bob live in the airport? Why couldn’t I live in the airport? Rent is free, no repairs to be done, no cooking to do and plenty of space.

Next time you find yourself at O’hare stop by gate C-24, have a seat and we’ll talk about getting you a new home.