Excerpt from my travelogue

July 8, 2009

            We made it to Spain.  All three of us flew first class both to New York and then to Barcelona.  That was about the greatest thing ever.  There was so much more space and luxury.  They treated us like kings.  The international first class seats were much more spacious that the ones to New York.  They gave us hot towels to freshen up with.  The drinks kept coming and they fed us so much.  The food was fancy and kept coming.  We had real napkins and chilled silverware.

On the first leg I turned to Brad and said, “I know this is totally irrational, but I feel like a superior human being for being in first class.”  He was drinking a glass of orange juice at the time (yes it was really a glass and not a plastic cup) and almost choked on it.  We laughed and laughed about that.  It was funny but I think mostly we were giddy for lack of sleep.  I had only three hours after working two days at the ranch.  Since then I still haven’t had much time to get good rest, just the restless kind on a plane, car and bus.     First class over the ocean was classy.  The seats were like recliners and had all power controls.  There was so much space that sitting in my seat, belted in, I was unable to reach my things stowed in the back of the seat in front of me.  That gave plenty of room to fully recline, which was made all the more comfortable because they gave us full size pillows and blankets.  We had individual screens at our disposal to watch movies and TV and nice headphones.  Each passenger got a little hygiene bag that had slipper-like socks, eye mask, pen and notepad, and toothbrush and toothpaste.  On that leg I turned to Brad and said, “That feeling of superiority I had on our first flight, well it’s even bigger now.”  There really was no end to the jokes about the poor fools in coach.  Also fueling the fire was the fact that the section was called Business Elite.  That’s enough to make someone feel top notch, call them Elite and exclude hordes of others who aren’t enjoying the same benefits.

            It did make me think of the economics involved in different degrees of services.  One comment that I overheard was by a woman who said, “I should have done better in graduate school.”  I took that to mean that she wasn’t making the big bucks and was therefore flying the cheaper class.  Allocation of goods and services by price has never seemed so silly as when the contrast was so stark.

            I was also surprised at the dramatic and almost immediate change in my way of thinking, all due to my circumstance.  I was about to take a nap.  I was reclined and snuggled up in my full size blanket.  I had kicked off my shoes and glanced down to where they were laying in front of me.  I had a momentary concern for their safety as they were my only pair of shoes.  If they were stolen I was out of luck.  I immediately became suspicious.  A thought jumped into my head so quickly that I didn’t have time to check myself.  I thought, “I bet somebody from coach would steal my shoes, that’s exactly the sort of thing they would do.”  As soon as it popped into my head I was shocked at myself for the broad, general, and unfair judgment.  Being elite will do that to you.

            Ironically on my return journey I was not so lucky as to get a first class seat.  I was back to the real-lifeness of coach. Luckily, I found that I didn’t have any urges to steal anybody’s shoes.