Mob Mentality

Coming through the airport in Lima, I became swept up in the closest thing to a mob I have ever been in.

Late night, long lines, inches away from the final security check point, and then everyone was redirected past the long line they just stood in, to a desk about 15 feet long. When approximately 200 people swarm around a fifteen foot long desk, yelling, shoving passports in faces, and pushing through the crowd, you begin to look around for any potential trigger that could turn the sparks into an explosion.

Airports are already a place of tension: signs that say "Jokes aren't funny", delays, lines, prices of food, miles of corridors to walk between ticketing and departure gate, carry-on-bags that will leave your shoulders mismatched for years to come. Oh, and yes, how could I forget the now standard Plexiglas crates of all forbidden items: combustibles, fire arms, knives, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nail files.

And so there I stood in the middle of a newly remodeled airport, surrounded by people waving every color of passport, wondering if mobs are legitimate reasons to miss a connecting flight.

And so I did what seemed most natural: I began to sing.

Amazing Grace
How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now am found
Twas blind but now I see

In the middle of a crowd of angry people, one lone, soft voice does not carry far. But the words went far enough, for I heard them.

And then I could talk calmly to the man pushing his way in front of me and I could look in the eyes of the woman panicking before me and I could tell the man at the desk that the passport he now held belonged to the person standing on the other side.

Perhaps it made no difference. After all, no one pulled back to help the woman who tumbled to the floor. And the words which should have been kind were more often shouted than soothed.

But I guess mobs are like that. And then that sudden quiet and wary confusion after the crowd is no longer a hair's breadth away from being a mob but a business man on his way home or a grandmother traveling to pinch cheeks.

Amazing grace, how sweet, sweet, sweet the sound.

~Rebecca