First Class Failure

I do not belong in first class. I'm the kind of plane partner that makes a little small talk and then looks out the window for the rest of the ride. That’s all I want. It's not that I don't like you, but there's a kind of unspoken agreement on planes, "If you are nice, and leave me alone, I'll be nice, and leave you alone. I promise not to tell you about my personal life if you promise not to tell me about your fungal-itus toes, or three-eared aunt."

I digress.

Last Thanksgiving, I flew home for the first time with Delta Gold Membership. It’s nothing fancy, it basically means you get to skip a few lines and get a pair of free headphones. The miles that got me the membership weren't even mine, they were my dad’s.  Now he would fit in well in first class. 

Him with his trim beard, tailored suit, and deep “Dr. William Cromwell” whenever asked his name. I do not fit in first class.

The morning I set out was a continuation of the previous night. I had not slept. I had not eaten. I had barely showered. My dress code was aimed for a comfort. Amidst the starched collars, name brands, spotless cardigans, and pressed suits

 I stood out like a zit in my “Green Eggs and Ham” T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, the ones with a hole in the knee. I don’t know why I didn’t get dressed that morning. I told myself it would be too hard to open my suitcase and repack after I’d tousled everything trying to get out an outfit. No, I was being lazy, and I paid for it.

You see, the membership didn’t only get me crappy headphones. Occasionally, when the stars aligned and the gods felt benevolent, I could get bumped up to first class. And it was today, of all days, that the gods stuck my sorry-faced, pajama-wearing, obnoxiously-damp self in first class.

 I could tell I was a foreigner.  

            The people around me were crisp. There just isn’t another word for it.  Each outfit was flawless. The old couple across from me could have been professors of philosophy, wealthy charity runners, art gallery owners, they could have been British.  I suspect the woman was a judge or a lawyer. 

She gave me one look over before cocking her eyebrow and dismissing my general existence. She made me feel very un-crispy, downright soggy actually.

            At first I hunted for someone else in a soggy, heck even a damp, outfit and thought for a moment I had found one in the man behind and to the left of me. But the hole in his jeans looked artsy, and he was wearing cool European artist glasses.  I shrank into the hood of my jacket, a grey oversized thing, happy at least to be alone in my slobby solitude. And that, dear reader, is when my fellow row 3 resident came along. She was crispy. No, she was deep fried Barbie. 

Well, except that she looked like she had never touched a fried thing in her life. She smiled perfect teeth boarded by fresh glossy lipstick.

             “Hey I have an overhead, just one second,” she drawled in a gentle southern belle accent. Her voice sounded practiced, like her hair, her smile, and her outfit; she was one giant perpetual performance. I wondered that she didn’t smell like plastic. But she didn’t, she smelled like an expensive bottled flower. After she packed her roll-on in the overhead compartment, she smiled at me, expectantly. I think she was waiting for me to get up so she could slide in. But that wasn’t about to happen. Not that I’m an overly rude person, but I had just run across the entire Atlanta airport due to a delayed flight. My legs ached, and they weren’t moving.

I smiled apologetically, scrunching my legs in, a trick I had learned from years of church services and theater performances. Barbie froze, eyes questioning, smile solidifying. I shrugged and tried to look adorable in the way I did as a child when I’d just stolen a cookie. It didn’t work then and it didn’t now. Her little black dress was made of a nice material from what I could see of the fabric stretched across her backside. Is it wrong I noticed? It was kind of in my face, extensively. I felt a little rejected when she sat down and didn’t ask my name. I mean after the time I spent with her derriere, I would have at least appreciated a hello.

Did you know that everybody in first class reads newspapers? Everybody. I don’t even know where they came from because no one had them when I first walked in. But as soon as we were in the air, 


POOF

Papers.  


No one told me to buy a copy of USA Today before I boarded, but I felt like it was something I should have known. That and to wear some freaking clothes.

            Now during this entire process, I wanted nothing more than a pen. Just a pen so the writer in me could catch the story unfolding before my red rimmed eyes. I fumbled through my giant tote (one that HORRIBLY clashed with my pants) and chided myself for being a bad writer. Not having a writing implement: a faux pas of epic proportions. I considered asking Barbie, but I couldn’t get rid of the image of her sterilizing her tainted pen after I returned it, and I feared the eyebrow of the British lawyer.

As soon as I could, I flagged down a stewardess, a thing much easier to do in first class than coach. 

She smiled professionally and glided away toward the cockpit. 
I dug out my notebook in the meantime, I at least had that. By the time I straightened back up the stewardess was patiently waiting. I guess she doubles as a genie for her night job. She wordlessly passed me a pen and disappeared again. I looked at it in my hand. This wasn’t just any pen. 

It was a made of a beautiful sturdy metal with no scratches or fingerprints. It wasn’t the cheap plastic airline thing I thought I was going to get. I looked for the Delta logo, but it turned out that the pen wasn’t connected to any airline whatsoever, well, except the fact that it was riding with me on a Delta flight some few thousand feet in the air.  

For the next fifteen minutes I scribbled away in my little bubble of contentment, giggling as I immortalized the British lawyer, Barbie, and the rest of the cabin. I had to pause when the refreshment basket came around. Barbie arched her waxed eyebrows, and knitted them in thought. There were a few bananas ringed by an assortment of chocolate candies in the basket. 

I saw her hesitate for a moment over the candy, watched as she brushed her fingers over the wrappers. In the end, she resigned herself to a small banana. I ate a Reese’s Cup, maybe with the smallest bit of devilish glee. Well actually, yes, I did it to spite her. I’m not really a huge fan a Reese’s Cups. But the look on her face was priceless. Take that, Barbie.

            The flight was not a long one. As we stowed our nifty arm-rest trays, I felt a small pressure on my shoulder. There stood the genie stewardess her face a picture of maternal concern and benevolence. She smiled without teeth and puckered her eyebrows in sympathy.

            “You know, you can just hold on to that pen. You don’t have to give it back, Happy Thanksgiving!” She patted my shoulder and walked off; happy she had done her part this year to make the world a better place.

Did I look like a freaking hobo?! Like I needed the pen, or maybe the pen was so sullied by my little hobo fingers that it could never belong to anyone but the little who was using it? Don’t get me wrong, I liked that pen, but I had to wonder why she gave it to me. The second we were allowed, I stood and exited the cabin with the tatters of my dignity rustling about my, now dry, hair.

I still have that pen, the one the stewardess gave me. In fact I wrote this entire story with it. It’s taught me a few things. One: always dress for first class, no matter what. Two: if you ever sit next to a soggy person on an airplane, remember, they might just be a writer. And you could very well be immortalized as a deep fried Barbie, if you don’t say hello.