Cleveland, Your Room Awaits You

Being civic-minded as usual, I cringed a little when I read this story about the San Francisco airport opening a yoga room. Why?! I cried. Why didn't my city, Cleveland, think of this first? Why Oh Why?! I cried. Why didn't I think of this for my city first? Not a yoga room per se for Cleveland's airport, but a room, any kind of a room, that screams Cleveland to the world's travelers as appropriately (within the bounds of family-values propriety) as a yoga room screams Frisco. Now I'm sure every city's airport will follow suit and construct a "signature" room. We could have been the first Cleveland.

Or could we have? Is there a theme room for Cleveland's airport that could succinctly express just what Cleveland is all about? I think there is. Several, at least, being such a diverse, heritage-rich city (Lord knows, based on the last time I was at the airport, there are enough empty gates there to house a bevy of Cleveland-themed rooms). Just off the top of my ever-spinning head, here are some ideas for CLE's own themed-room, offered gratis, as a proud native son.

• A Cholesterol Room: Nothing fancy, just some old couches, a TV with fair reception, a keg of Schmidt's, and plenty of bowls of snack foods, cheesy dips, brats, etc.
• A Take-a-Hubcap/Leave-a-Hubcap Room: A paean to the city's ubiquitous and man-sized potholes.
• A Fire Room: Nothing but a raging fire inside, to celebrate the city's fiery infamy when, within a few years, the city's river caught on fire, as did the mayor's hair.
• A Hater's Room: Maybe not politically correct, but what do we care? A room filled with effigies of all the folks we used to love but learned to hate at a moment's notice--LeBron, Art Modell, Albert Belle et al.--and those we never cared much about in the first place but seem to hate more and more all the time--John Elway, Michael Jordan, anyone from Pittsburgh.
•  A Dennis Kucinich Room: Who knows, maybe Sean Penn and Shirley MacLaine will hang out there.

No, no, I've got it. THE room to sum up Cleveland: Signs throughout the terminal direct you to a room where paradise, redemption, and salvation await you. Just around the corner, down that hall, to the left then jog right. You're almost there. See it up ahead, the room with the door opened on sunlight, soothing breezes, the whiff of fine cuisine and spirits, right in here ... and boom, the door shuts permanently in your face just as you're about to walk in. That's Cleveland. Get to work, CLE.