Friday afternoon, I got a phone call from the wife of my old friend Keith — now living on the east coast — who had to fly into Salt Lake on very short notice to attend to some important family business. She wondered if he could impose on me to pick him up from the airport? Sure, I said, no problem. She apologized that it was so last-minute, and that Keith’s plane was arriving so late. Again, I said, no problem… I tend to be a night owl anyway, and I actually like going to the airport. It lets me people watch and fantasize about going somewhere myself.

Well, his plane got delayed — he texted me from Chicago, with another apology, to which I replied with another “no problem” — so by the time he finally arrived in SLC, it was very late indeed. Just in case you’ve never been in an airport past 10 PM, let me tell you… things get kinda weird. People tend to let their hair down a bit more than they might when broad daylight is streaming through the skylights above.

I’m thinking in particular of a silver-haired gentleman in his mid-50s, who appeared to be physically fit and was nicely dressed in pressed slacks, a silky polo shirt, and comfortable-looking loafers with no socks. (Well, comfortable enough for inside the terminal; I suspect he probably wished he was wearing socks and some heavier footwear when he stepped outside into a chilly rainstorm that was starting to transition into slushy snow.) This guy came strolling down out of the terminal area — sealed off to non-ticketed people by plexiglass panels in these days of TSA-imposed inconvenience  — and was met by a young woman I first assumed was his daughter. Maybe even his granddaughter. There was that much of an age difference between them.

They hugged and smiled at one another, as people who haven’t seen each other in a while do when they meet up again at the airport. She took his carry-on from him, then threw her arm over his shoulder for another impromptu hug. He gave her a little squeeze in return.

Then he stuck his tongue down her throat.

I glanced away for a second, then looked back in a classic doubletake. Surely I hadn’t just seen… but I had. They were sucking face like teenagers during the second feature at a drive-in movie. And his hands were moving down her back, slipping down toward her rounded…

Now, I’m no prude, and I’ve got no problem at all with May-September romances, or even with the dreaded public display of affection (PDA), but… did I mention she looked like his granddaughter? She was wearing a pink Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and had her honey-blond hair in a ponytail, for cryin’ out loud! And yet it was explicitly obvious that they, ahem, had had knowledge of one another, as they say in the Bible.

Anyhow, they went on like this for quite a while, long enough that it started getting a little uncomfortable for everyone in attendance, and the whole time, I just kept thinking of Principal Rooney’s line in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off:

“So that‘s how it is in their family…”