Starving in O’Hare

I hadn’t even left the country yet and already I was scrounging for food.

My flight landed at Chicago’s O’Hare airport at 6:30pm, and I casually settled in by an electrical outlet with my laptop for a few hours of wait. My next flight wasn’t until 1:00am, so over six hours to read, write and catch up on emails.

At precisely 9:08, I sensed that something was wrong. I looked up–nobody there. Huh? What just a few hours ago had been hallways teeming with business travelers, families, airport workers, stewardesses, little kids, tourists and security personnel were now empty hallways teeming with…nobody. Eerie.

It almost felt like any second a few hundred people would pop out from behind a screen and shout “Surprise! Boy did we have you going, haha.” But no.

So I roamed the halls in search of food. Nothing. Closed, closed, closed. Oh wait, is this one open? No, closed. The lights were on just to fake me out. O’Hare after 9:00 was deserted, although I did occasionally cross paths with a zombie-like traveler stumbling along in the opposite direction, ragged boarding pass in one hand and weary, vacant look in the other.

I walked from the farthest reaches of the Terminal 1’s C Concourse, down alone through the tunnel, and across both sides of the B Concourse in search of food. Hungry, with a backpack that probably weighed more than my teenage brother laden with dumbells, and burning what my famished stomach insisted must be at least 5 calories a minute.

I even walked all the way to Terminal 3, where I knew the Chili’s restaurant was. Closed.

I must have looked pretty hungry, because a Thai airport worker even offered me a banana and granola bar to tide me over. Bless her soul.

And then, when I had almost given up all hope, I saw a golden light. Well, more like yellow. McDonald’s arches, to be exact. The last remaining eatery open in the world’s second largest airport at 9:49pm. Eureka!

McDonald’s as my last meal in the U.S.A.–how perfectly, poetically fitting. I’ll have Chicken McNuggets, Fries and a Diet Coke to go, please.