Last year a couple college buddies and I decided to start the tradition of having a mini reunion in San Diego to watch Football, eat our body weight in burritos and have beer replace water as the most prevalent substance in our bodies.
When it came to picking which airline to fly, I chose Virgin America. I hardly ever fly domestic but I knew that Virgin was owned by the cool and eccentric Ballin British Billionaire Sir Richard Branson. That’s right, Sir. Dudes a frickin knight who throws out first pitches at baseball games and makes cameos on the Simpsons. When’s the last time the CEO of Southwest did anything besides apologize for delayed flights?
I was about to press “purchase” on my flight ticket when a little box popped up and said “would you like to upgrade to First Class for $____” I paused, and the impulsive 5 year old child part of my brain said “Why not ??? You had a rough month and you have some spending money left over, plus there is no way you can afford anything but economy class for a flight longer than 2 hours”. Before the mature then-22-year-old adult part of my brain could offer a rebuttal about putting aside money to invest, save, or maybe buy mom a new blender, I got my email confirmation for the First Class flight I had just booked.
The following is what transpired between arriving at SFO and arriving in San Diego
Arriving at SFO having already checked-in I walked straight to security. Since it was a Friday evening, the line was packed and never ending, like the line at Ben and Jerry’s on Free Scoop Day, but this Ben and Jerry’s only has one employee working both the scoop station and the cash register and said employee has suddenly decided to take their lunch break. Luckily for me however, my shiny ticket with the word “FIRST” on it meant I got my own line for TSA which was pretty much empty. I made the mistake of not looking straight ahead while walking towards the scanners; the looks I got from the people in the economy line were as if I had insulted all of their mothers.
Sidebar real quick: does anyone else think that TSA agents are trained to not show any emotions besides dissatisfaction, annoyance, contempt, disdain and disgruntlement? I have always tried to make my TSA agent smile but so far to no avail. That doesn’t mean I was going to stop trying though.
As I exited the scanner I was told by my TSA agent (a balding middle-aged Asian man who looked like he’d woken up on the wrong side of bed every day the past week) that I had been “randomly” selected for further screening. After copious pat-downs, metal detector sweeps etc, he pulled out a small sheet of paper like material, rubbed it on my fingers and asked in a perfect monotone “have you recently been in contact with any chemicals or hazardous materials?” Seeing my chance to make him smile I made eye contact and replied loud and clear, “Does Taco Bell count?”
Silence.
He just stared at me, dumbfounded, deer in headlights. I could tell his TSA trained brain was fighting furiously to stick to protocol and not react to clearly what had been a hilarious joke. As this titanic struggle waged within in him I realized I probably should have answered him seriously when it came to testing my fingers for what I assumed was explosive residue or bomb making material seeing as I was a brown guy with a beard and this after all, was the TSA.
After what seemed like an eternity during which I was half expecting to be escorted to a windowless room for interrogation, he cracked a half smile/grimace and told me I was free to go. I counted that as a success in my book.
Unfortunately, upon arriving at the gate it was announced that my flight was delayed by an hour, which then became an hour and a half and then 2 hours. This meant that when it was finally time to board (again I got to go first since you know, First Class and all) the other passengers were quite grumpy and irritated. More on this later.
The first class section only had 8 seats, and man were they posh. They reclined almost fully into beds, had a massage feature and were plush, soft and supremely comfortable. There were 5 more passengers in the section, the guy next to me who we will refer to as “Douche McDoucheFace”, two businessmen across the aisle and a young couple sitting in the row behind me. I sat in my seat and a few minutes later, McDoucheFace took his seat next to me. He had his headphones over his ears and was watching something on his phone with a blank soul-less expression on his face. I tried to make eye contact and smile/say hi but he blatantly ignored me and just kept watching his show, thus earning the nickname”Douche McDoucheFace”. Apparently interacting with other passengers is only done in economy class.
I then decided to shift my attention back to my seat and was exploring the different massage settings when the flight attendant who was assigned to first class handed me a bag of salted caramel popcorn, a chocolate bar and asked me “would you like some champagne”? I looked at her trying to think of the best way to YES without sounding too eager like it was my first time being asked this, while at the same time without sounding rude. My voice decided to crack when I said “yes please” so lord knows what impression she got. Before she could ask McDoucheFace what he wanted to drink he asked for RedWine2Straws1NapkinPrertzels, all in one breathe without looking up from his phone. Apparently being respectful is only required if you fly economy class.
By now the other passengers were starting to board the plane and here is where the fact that the flight was delayed comes into play. In my ultimate wisdom I had picked seat 1-A, the very first seat on the plane. This meant that the roughly 100 people who thought they would be in San Diego by now and who had probably not eaten dinner or worse missed a connecting flight, board their plane and the FIRST thing they see is me laying flat on my ass watching TV and sipping champagne while eating popcorn and chocolate. I doubt I have ever felt more guilty in my life as I hastily yet casually tried to hide the chocolate and popcorn under my blanket as flustered looking parents carrying toddlers gave me the stink eye as they passed. In an effort to look inconspicuous I chugged my champagne and hid the glass under my seat as one passenger muttered “looks like the trust fund is paying off” right as he passed me. I accidentally made eye contact with the flight attendant which she took to mean “more champagne please” so the next thing I knew there was a full glass in my hand.
Thankfully boarding was over quickly and we were on our way. The flight was supposed to be around 1 hour and 15 minutes, but the captain put on the afterburners and went full throttle, like a man whose Viagra has kicked in half an hour too early on the drive home from work, causing the flight duration to change to 50 minutes. For the rest of the passengers in the first class cabin I guess this meant they had 25 less minutes to indulge in free liquor because the flight attendant spent the whole flight pouring countless Vodka Cranberries for the 2 businessmen, providing champagne bottle service to the couple behind me whose giggles got louder and louder with each glass, and endless glasses of red wine to McDouche who proceeded to get redder and redder till his face matched his wine. The whole time he never broke his gaze from his phone.
I nestled into my seat, set the massage intensity to medium and before I knew it we had landed in San Diego where being in seat 1-A actually came in handy because I was the first off the plane. In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing the piloted floored it to San Diego because for as comfortable as I was in my seat, for some reason I REALLY wanted to get off the plane.
Looking back I realized that all of the guilt that I had gone through was due to the fact that I was being overly sensitive to what was going on around me, rather than just focusing on enjoying myself and the experience. Maybe I felt bad that my trip had gone smoother than the majority of everyone else’s, but then again that’s what I was paying for. The service was great, the attendants were polite, attentive, accommodating and understanding given the delays, I couldn’t have asked for a more comfortable seat and there was unlimited free alcohol. It was definitely worth the extra money I paid.
In a few months my friends and I will be reconvening for our second trip to San Diego and this time I will be prepared to actually enjoy the perks of First Class travel, all 50 glorious minutes of it.
justanotherbrownguy 