Nov 24th JFK Airport - Plastic Wrapped Apples

Glancing at my watch I see that it is 6:01 AM. I’m at the JFK airport, terminal 7. There is a Peet’s Coffee and a McDonalds. My flight is at 7:20 AM, duty free opens at 7 AM.

Yesterday it was Black Friday (where millions of Americans pull out their wallets and add more to their ever increasing individual debt load as they run out and celebrate the buy something, buy anything day on this day immediately following the American Thanksgiving).

Yet I can’t buy a bottle of booze at duty free.

My saving grace – I have an Elite Air Canada card which gives me access to the United Red Carpet lounge. I started with a rather weak lukewarm coffee with cream in a cute coffee cup (never ever milk – always cream - yuk); that was followed up by some OJ that I poured in a plastic glass. I took the gray coloured plastic knife and tore back the lid from a 1 oz Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese spread tub and smeared that with my gray coloured plastic knife onto some Pepperidge Farm Sesame seed crackers (yeh! No hydrogenated fats in the crackers). I placed the crackers onto the clear hard plastic plate.

Decided the coffee was too weak and thought I would try the instant cappuccino machine. A tiny sign taped onto the machine informed me that all the offerings were already sweetened. Do they not realize that we have an epidemic going on with obesity?

This simple morning act means that I contributed at least 10 ounces of plastic that will most surely end up in some landfill site.

I thought of having a fresh orange or a granny smith or red delicious apple. The apples are all wrapped tight in plastic – I suppose that is for food safety reasons. I wonder if the plastic wrap leaves behind a nice plastic flavour or does it simply remove the wax off the apple?

I must say that the Red Carpet Lounge does not compare with the Air Canada lounge offerings. There are some magazines to select from, several papers and that sums up the lounge experience. If I had a t-mobile account I could get internet access but I decided to disengage my wireless on the laptop instead. And as it is I would have had to pay to access the internet.