Second Class Citizen
In my opinion, there are two seats on an airplane that are worse than any other. One is in the back, right by the bathrooms. The second is the first row of the "economy" section, otherwise known as coach. I was lucky enough to have both of these seats on my day-long adventure home from Alaska yesterday.The day started at 4:30am, waking up very disgruntled in my hotel room. Using no logic at all the night before, I decided to save the packing of the bags until the morning. In retrospect, it was a horrible decision, but it made sense at the time. So I scramble around the room to collect all my belongings and squish them back into my suitcases. 5am, check out of the hotel, get gas in the rental car, and drive to the airport. 5:30am, check in at the airport only for another Alaska Airlines representative tell me that I will probably miss my flight since they were almost finished boarding. Panic overwhelms me as I run through the airport, wait in line at security, and of course, get caught behind the two oldest and slowest people in the Arctic. Finally, I reach my gate and just make my flight.
My seat is 6D, the first row behind first class. (First class is one of those things I never really thought about, and never really saw why someone would pay so much money for, regardless of their economic status. Sure they get to board first, and have cushy leather seats, and you get to gloat as all the other second class passengers march past you to squeeze into their tiny seats in the back of the plane. But even with all that, I never thought it was worth the money.) So I'm sitting there, and I notice that the flight attendant is handing out little bottles of water to the folks in front of me. After my hustling in the morning I was feeling pretty parched. "Excuse me, can I have a bottle of water?" Her response: "They'll be serving beverages in your section once we take off sir." And she just turns around. I'm heartbroken, and thirsty. Then I see her passing out little neck pillows and sleeping masks, she gives me a look like "Don't even think about it." We're in the air now and I finally get my little glass of water and this dried up cake-like thing that they call a scone. This was not a scone. The breakfast in front of me is served on a silver platter and consists of what looks like french toast and fresh fruit accompanied by a glass of orange juice and mug of coffee. Now I'm officially jealous and I begin to understand why you'd fly first class.
I touch down in Seattle an prepare for my 2 1/2 hour layover...which turns into about 4 hours thanks to American Airlines unprecedented punctuality. My seat this time 27D, right next to the bathrooms. For 3 hours and 15 minutes of flight time, I had people bumping into me and standing right next to me waiting in line. The small amount of personal space I had, was now virtually nil. Fortunately I was pretty engrossed in an issue of GQ and didn't let it bother me too much.
Touchdown in Chicago and get into a cab to get home. The cab driver was talking to himself in Chinese the whole way home and just kept saying "Sh*t, Sh*t" It made me very anxious. The perfect end to a perfect day, I suppose. The 14 hour sleep session that I underwent was just what the doctor ordered.
I've got a couple weeks off now, so I have no excuse for inconsistent blogging. I just need to find a muse.
posted by philthy @ 6:17 PM
2 Comments:
This comment is actually in regards to "Parents Just Don't Understand".
If you want to avoid unruly obnoxious kids, my brother has developed a good strategy. My brother has an uncanny ability to completely separate himself from social norms as if he were confronting a situation for the first time with no prior knowledge. When he goes to a restaurant he always sits in the smoking section, even though he doesn't smoke. The reason he does this is because often times the non-smoking section is filled to capacity with screaming kids while the smoking section (albeit smokey) only has two old ladies.
I was on a flight once where a small child, around 18 months old, was sitting behind me, kicking my seat. Hard.
Her mother had put her in a car seat, then in the plane seat, which meant that she was higher up and in prime kicking position.
And it wasn't just a kick here or there either, it was constant. After the first few minutes, I made one of those "turn your head and look behind you without saying anything" moves. After several tries at this move, and after over 30 minutes of being jolted in my seat, I kindly turned around and asked the mother if there was something she could do to stop the kicking.
In my mind, she had two options:
1) Take the kid out of the car seat and hold her, thus preventing her from being able to kick
OR
2) Turn the car seat around backwards in the plane seat so the kid could no longer kick the back of my seat.
(The latter option would have enabled the mother to continue to read her book and ignore the child).
But even though I was super nice to the woman, she screamed back at me "SHE'S JUST A BABY!!! SHE DOESN'T KNOW ANY BETTER!!!"
I wanted to say "well, she might not know any better, but you should."
I carried on luggage on that flight, but I'd bet a million damn dollars that mother also stood thisclose to the baggage claim corral so that nobody else could see or get to their luggage.
Teresa
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