On flights, looking out for No. 1

SAO PAULO — When we were in the airport in Manaus the other day, somebody on the loudspeaker announced the departure of Flight No. 1. I was on Flight No. 3. I think the flight numbers went up to about eight. Manaus is not a United hub city.

Some of us World Cup veterans finally figured out how to check into these flights early and grab all the best seats. We are keeping this news from the whippersnapper reporters who have not yet earned the right to sit on the aisle or by a window on overnight trips. I am almost at that stage of life when I expect these young people to get up and offer me the best seats, in any case. Except they don’t. I also expect the tech people at our workplace to use words that I understand in emails, or I become cranky. Cranky is cool. BTW: If you want to know the origin of the word whippersnapper, it comes from the 17th century, when idle young men i n London would snap a whip to gain attention. You learn something every day i n the diary, most of which you should forget immediately.

I finally spotted a whippersnapper in the act of drawing graffiti on the side of a building here. This was an inevitable sighting, since all of Brazil is just one big TAKI 183. There’s some really impressive graffiti art here, but this wasn’t an example of it. He was just spray painting nonsense on the front of a private house. Looked like a duck, maybe. I would not like him to come to my place. I do not want his duck.

Lewis, my roommate, talks way too loudly in the morning. He needs to use his inside voice.