You finally get some well-deserved time off and what happens? You spend most of it in an airport. What could be more relaxing? “Mister Dimwit, could you please report to the ticket counter? Mister Dimwit, could you please report to the nearest ticket counter?”

What could be more romantic? “Unattended bags and parcels will be destroyed! Their owners, too!”

What could be more expensive? “Eleven dollars for a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee?”

Is that really what you want on your tombstone? “I wish I’d spent more time at O’Hare?”

Here’s the deal. We all know that if you fly, you’re going to spend most, if not all, of your Thanksgiving holiday in an overcrowded airport lounge, sitting on your luggage because of the third annual baggage-handler tag-football game on a runway in Atlanta, a tectonic shift in Chicago, or an “equipment” problem in Toronto. Thousands of people are now stranded in the terminal, there are no seats left, and, because it’s a holiday, the people who clean the restrooms are on vacation.

Or maybe you’ll get stuck in traffic and miss the flight altogether. Or maybe you’ll catch the flight, but miss the connecting flight. Or maybe the airline’s computers will go down. Or maybe you’ll get bumped for no reason at all.

Why do we put ourselves through this each year? And why do we pay for the privilege in time and money? There’s only one logical explanation -- we like it. We like spending time with absolute strangers at the airport more than we do with our families. Face it, it’s a Dr. Phil show waiting to happen.

If we accept that fact, we could all save ourselves a lot of time and money each year, and still eat like gluttons. Here’s a plan that will let all of us spend a lot of time at the airport with complete strangers and still get back home in time to watch stories about holiday-travel gridlock on the evening news.