While waiting for the arrival of the German students last Tuesday, I had time to sit and people watch for hours. From the position of someone not in a rush to make a connecting flight or to find a taxi, airports are quite enthralling. They have a habit of evoking two contrasting emotions: love and frustration, which are feelings that many of us make feeble attempts to hide during everyday life.

Frustration: often endured, yet rarely expressed. One of the few local places to observe frustration in its rawest and most unrestricted form is in the center of the MSP terminal. Here you can watch people scan the giant, headache-inducing flight status screen and examine the exclamations of anger after a flight complication. MSP has a knack for inducing exasperation, as their business mantra seemingly focuses on maximizing profits versus ensuring customer satisfaction.

Love: most earnestly expressed after a period of separation. While watching people reunite at airports, I was able to witness some of the most genuine expressions of love that I have ever seen. In an attempt to avoid staring, I stole glances at a woman who disembarked from her flight and lept into her boyfriend’s arms, sporting an exhilarated expression on her face that honestly could not be reenacted. The authentic appreciation they showed for simply holding one another after their time apart was unlike anything I had ever seen- far more profound than the superficially expressed PDA in the halls of Minnetonka.

If MSP has taught me anything, it is this; the two things the majority of humans hate most in life are abhorrent customer service and extended time apart from loved ones. When distasteful events are experienced, our instinctual emotions inadvertently arise.