I'm at London Stansted Airport, which as most people know is nowhere near London.

Back when I was younger and dumber and broke(r), I used to use this airport all the time. This is because this, as most people know, Stansted is London's Ryanair base and de-facto HQ.

But I moved to a different country now, and when I fly to London it's usually not into Stansted.

If you'd asked me ten years ago, I'd have told you Stansted was a good airport.

I slept here, more than once. Spent the night here. Spent countless hours waiting on my flight. I used to be familiar with it.

I got here today way ahead of time, because I thought I'd get here, head to the lounge, have a glass of wine, or two. Or ten.

But I was wrong.

I knew the whole experience would be horrible when I got to the line to go through security.

Most airports are now doing away with all that bulls**t about getting your laptop and liquids out of the backpack, but not Stansted.

At Stansted, you have to take liquids out, and your laptop out, and your laptop out of its case, if you have one, which I did.

You also have to take your shoes off, including sneakers. This probably explains why the line is so long. And why I had to wait nearly 50 minutes to go through security. Something I hadn't experienced in a while. A long while.

But no matter, I thought to myself, "after this, and being searched and putting all my stuff back on, I'm gonna at least enjoy the lounge".

But I wasn't going to enjoy the lounge.

I rushed to the lounge, the only one available unless you're flying Emirates, and I knew immediately something was wrong.

I got in line, and the fact there was a line was a huge red flag to begin with.

That's where I heard a girl, let's call her E, translate for a Spanish woman. After about 10 minutes, the Spanish woman gave up, and E attempted to get into the lounge.

But she failed.

"We're fully booked," the girl at the counter said, happily. Joyfully. Like she was enjoying telling customers she couldn't accommodate them.

Then the girl at the counter proceeded to ask E for her full name, flight number, flight time, email address, social security number and zodiac sign (I made the last two up) to put her on the list.

I apologise if I sound a bit arrogant, but when I walk into an airport lounge, I don't wanna be on any list. I walk in, scan the code and produce my card or boarding pass, that's it.

But the point is, even if I had given Girl At The Counter all my details, which I wasn't going to, and even if I was willing to wait, I'd have had eight people ahead of me in line.

So the second E signed up, and it was my turn, I just shrugged to myself and walked away, frustrated and hot and bothered and thirsty.

I made my way to the first bar I saw... which was packed.

So I went to the second bar and got a large glass of wine, which I drank quickly, because I was secretly hoping I'd find a spot in the lounge, and then headed back to the lounge.

To no avail.

"Is the situation as bleak as before?" I asked Girl At The Counter. But before she could answer, I saw that the list had more names on it. I now had 13 people before me. Like when you're at the doctor's.

Before she could answer, I said, "it's worse than before, isn't it?".

She said, "Yes. You should've signed up when you were here earlier."

I looked at her like she owed me money. Like I'd just been tackled from behind on a football pitch and she was the referee and hadn't given the guy who did that to me a yellow card.

"Yeah, I know. But the point of a lounge is I just walk in and relax, and there's no line. If I have to wait in line, it kind of defeats the point. I'd rather just go to a random bar here," I said.

She replied, "which is also perfectly okay."

What she meant was, "you're an arrogant idiot."

I didn't reply to that, just turned around and walked back to the same wine bar as before, sat down, had another glass of wine... and that's when E showed up.

E had done things by the book.

She'd provided name and last name, email, flight time and flight number, with people standing in line behind her which creates obvious privacy issues... and it still wasn't enough to get her a table in the lounge. And she still ended up in the same wine bar as me.

Moral of the story? Not sure. Maybe, the moral of the story is... how would I know? I just had large glasses of wine.

Maybe sometimes telling somebody, directly or indirectly or subtly or silently or implicitly, to eff off and just go with the your way or the highway thing... is a good thing.