Terminal A

A couple weeks ago, Mike K. got an email containing an invitation to a soiree thrown by the Atlantic Monthly and Delta Airlines. Here's the invite:

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY
PRESENTS
“BOSTON BANTER”

The Atlantic Monthly and Delta Airlines
invite you and a guest to join fellow Bostonians for
a night of “Boston Banter,”
a private reception to toast
the opening of the new
Delta Terminal A
at Logan Airport

Monday, March 14, 2005
7-9 p.m.
Terminal A
Logan Airport

COCKTAIL ATTIRE                                  
CURBSIDE VALET PARKING AT ARRIVAL LEVEL

Needless to day, I was pretty excited at the prospect of cocktail attire. And the whole idea of attending a party in Terminal A was, although bizarre, very interesting. So this evening, we got all dressed up and headed on over to Logan Airport!!

When we got there, we first drove to departures, probably not having read all the way to the bottom of the invitation. But. . . you know. . . the new terminal is "taking off," right? Well, apparently not. Apparently it's "arriving." Anyway, it was all very fancy when we got to the Arrival level; many valets were there, and a coat check. No one asked us our names, however, so ANY OF YOU COULD HAVE GONE. That's right. Anyone could have crashed the Terminal A party!



We headed up the escalator to the Check-in area, where we were handed little programs and booklets entitled "Boston Banter", which was a collection of writing about Boston from old issues of the Atlantic Monthly. We had arrived a little late, so we manuevered our way through the crowd of people who were definitely older than us and definitely owned homes (probably in Beacon Hill) and reached a small buffet table. (By the way, at this point we still had no idea why Mike was invited to the party.) The food was very good -- pork tenderloin, brown bread, a salad with cranberries and other delights -- but there was nowhere to sit since we had arrived late, so we sat on an air vent by the giant plate glass windows. We swiped some duck tenderloin from a server on our way to sit down. Mmmm. Duck tenderloin.



The publisher of the A.M. had started speaking at this point, only to be interrupted by a blaring security annoucement. "Attention!!! This is a security announcement!! Please keep all your belongings close to you!" That made the whole Cocktail-Party-in-An-Airport-Terminal scenario come alive, although funnier was the later announcement: "Attention! This is a non smoking area!!!" Anyway, the publisher probably sensed that no one really knew why they had been invited to an airport for free food and drink, so she revealed the secret behind the random Bostonian invitations: turns out that Mike was invited because he subscribes to the Atlanic Monthly. That's it. I guess it doesn't matter that I've racked up at least 60,000 miles on Delta -- I needed to subscribe to a magazine!

We unfortunately missed the drawing for free flights and hotel rooms, but we did get some free items (besides the food) - a cookbook on the wonders of slow food, and some big book on some historical figure (can you tell I didn't bother to pick that one up?). We also met the one other couple under the age of thirty, Emily and Andrew:



Here's the crazy part - after chatting for a bit, we discovered that Andrew works Saturday nights at Tsunami (finest sushi in town, by the way). I realized at that point that he had totally been our waiter back in November! And a fine waiter at that, recommending the yummy Alaskan Salmon. Oh, Alaskan Salmon, how I love thee!! Anyway, small world. Very small world. And I guess Emily randomly knew the drummer in the jazz trio, so all these odd connections were present.



Before we left, I channeled my inner flight attendant:


Mike: I'd like a ticket to Madagascar.
Me: I'm not sure if we fly there, but I'll check.

All in all, it was a really fun time, which was cool since we had no idea what to expect. We left with pork in our bellies, free books, and the knowledge that we partied in an airline terminal. Rock!!