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Flying high Life Among the SwellsBy Rick Horowitz To the gentlemen seated in 3C and 3D the other night: Thanks so much for a first-class travel experience. To all the rest of you out there: Don't even bother. It's not how you thought it would be. Traveling first class, I mean. I'd never done it before -- not until the other night -- and I wouldn't have done it then, either, if the computer hadn't dangled the question right in front of me: "Would you like to upgrade to first-class seats (if available)?" Dangled the question after informing me that on the second leg of my Wisconsin-to-Florida trip -- the leg that would start in Detroit and was scheduled to reach its destination almost three hours later -- my travelmate and I would each be enjoying the comfort and convenience of the dreaded middle seat. We'd had the experience often enough -- strange elbows flopping over the armrests, snoring heads bouncing onto our shoulders -- and we'd gotten through it. But this time? It would be our second flight of the evening, and a long one, after a long day's work. We weren't looking forward to it. And then temptation came. "Would you like to upgrade to first-class seats (if available)?" For not a lot of extra money, we could escape the claustrophobia of coach for those silky, secluded precincts up front. Everybody should have the chance at least once, right? Once was more than enough. Will the gentlemen in 3C and 3D please take a bow? OK, thanks. You can sit down now. I'll admit it: I've always -- Will you sit down now? I've always had a vision of what traveling first class would be like. I'd dragged my bags often enough through the first-class section on my way back to my typical row-30-something seat. I'd taken vague note of the clientele -- those early-boarded, pillow-soothed types with the ties already loosened or the heels kicked aside, drinks in hand, settled into their spacious surroundings after some high-end wheeling-dealing. I'd noticed the attentive service -- the tasty-looking meals served on real plates. That was my vision. This was my reality: almonds. Wider seats, and roasted, salted almonds in tiny foil packs. No tasty-looking meals -- or any meals, for that matter. But tiny packs of almonds, as many as you want. (Two, it turns out, is as many as I want.) It was the same thing with drinks -- as many as you want -- but since my travelmate and I aren't especially big drinkers, it wasn't that big a deal to us. One row behind us, however, the gentlemen in 3C and 3D viewed the situation somewhat differently. They started with double vodkas. Then they kept going. I lost track after the fourth drink for each of them -- or was it the fifth? Whatever they'd paid for their first-class seats, they seemed determined to make it all back in alcohol. They'd never met before, 3C and 3D, but that didn't keep them from falling immediately into animated (lubricated?) conversation about this and that. And that. And that. Blondes. Boats. Fishing. iPods. They covered the waterfront -- and as the drinks kept pouring in, they covered it with heavier tongues and louder and louder voices. I tried my quick-glance-over-the-shoulder technique, the one I use at the movies to gently let people know they're being heard. It worked about as well as it usually does at the movies. They kept talking, louder and slurrier, minute after excruciating minute. I couldn't read. I couldn't nap. I couldn't stand it. I finally turned around, pointed out how late it was, and how loud it was, and asked them to keep it down. "Was I yelling?" the slurrier one wanted to know. "Something like that," I said. He was clueless. And eventually -- too late to do me a bit of good -- he was sleeping. See what happens when you let the riffraff in? Posted 7/1/04. Get
first-class commentary -- no, really! -- from syndicated columnist Rick
Horowitz. (Tell someone special.)
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Rick Horowitz
