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![\"WASHINGTON](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/4681254_web1_Airport_Delays_New_York_79114.jpg\")
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WASHINGTON POST FILES<\/p>\n
Boarding gates at airports can be scary places.<\/p>\n
A haunted house but it\u2019s just Gate E25<\/p>\n
The airport has become an absolutely lawless place and, while there\u2019s an argument to be made that this haunted house actually starts back in security \u2014 no you can\u2019t bring your full shampoo or unopened bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red through the scanner, my man! \u2014 but it really reaches top terror at the gate.<\/p>\n
The people in Boarding Zone 9 who are are already standing and hovering. The people playing fast and loose with the definition of \u201cpersonal item.\u201d The unmediated coughing that\u2019s best described as \u201cwet.\u201d And the final boss: the distorted cacophony of earbudless TikTok videos and FaceTime calls at top volume.<\/p>\n
A haunted house but it\u2019s just AI flyers from Facebook<\/p>\n
From carnivals to yard sales, it seems everyone has hopped aboard the slop train I keep begging to leave me behind. Just a bunch of weirdly slick, uncanny valleys that simultaneously have too much information and not enough, crammed to the margins with such frightening redundancy as \u201cdate night for two\u201d followed by \u201cperfect for two.\u201d (To add to the terror, that\u2019s a real example.)<\/p>\n
A haunted house but it\u2019s just my social media posts circa 2012<\/p>\n
I have nothing in common with the woman who used to earnestly post vaguely humiliating things such as \u201cmy hamstrings still hurt from aerobics!\u201d (we get it, you worked out) on Facebook, or photos of heavily filtered avocado toast and notebook in a cafe on Instagram with the hashtag \u201c#amwriting\u201d (girl, you were never #amwriting).<\/p>\n
Revisiting these posts is like wandering through a veritable graveyard of cringe, haunted by the ghosts of your past selves.<\/p>\n
A haunted house but it\u2019s just perimenopause<\/p>\n
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Enter through the Chamber of Brain Fog before taking the Roller Coaster of Hormones through the Waterpark of Night Sweats. Enter the Hall of Mirrors \u2014 which are just the communal change room mirrors from Aritizia \u2014 where you can admire your new facial hair.<\/p>\n
Oh, does your one armpit smell like onions and do your ears itch? Congrats, you\u2019ve reached the Cauldron of Secret Symptoms.<\/p>\n
A haunted house but it\u2019s just a bunch of things I find incredibly overstimulating<\/p>\n
That one hair that keeps sticking to my face. Someone talking to me while the TV is on. A sleeve bunching inside of another sleeve. Hearing Paul McCartney\u2019s Wonderful Christmastime in a hot store. The fan above the stove. Mittens!<\/p>\n
jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n
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Jen Zoratti Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT<\/a>. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print \u2013 part of the Free Press\u2018s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press\u2019s history and mandate<\/a>, and learn how our newsroom operates<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
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