The Last Shall Be First.

I grew accustomed to first class early on - after one flight, actually. After training I flew from Salt Lake City to Chicago on my way to Indianapolis and got a seat in first. It was the most comfortable airplane seat I'd ever sat in: wide enough to not care that someone was seated right next to me and enough room in front to cross my legs without resorting to Cirque de Soleil moves. Knowing the airlines were cutting costs to shrink their astronomical deficits, I figured I'd get some free drinks and that would be that. When the flight attendant closed the curtain between first class and economy, I knew I was a part of something bigger. I got the drinks, yes, but they were in actual glassware(!) and accompanied by a porcelain dish of mixed nuts. Normally I don't even like nuts but I ate the whole damn thing, because, why? Because that is what One does in first class. After setting out a linen tablecloth, the flight attendant presented me with a shrimp salad, a plate of melon and pineapple, and a giant cookie, all on china and with real silverware. I admit to feeling a smidge guilty when I turned and saw the gauzy curtain separating me from the hoi polloi and their mini-bags of pretzels (after all, it wasn't so long ago that I was one of them), but in the spirit of the show must go on, etc., etc., I committed to being the best first class passenger I could be, which meant I licked each and every plate clean and drank my weight in gin and tonics. At 32,000 feet, amidst the clinking of cutlery and sterile smell of prepackaged blankets, I knew one thing: I had arrived.

A few weeks later I flew from San Francisco to Colorado Springs. It was an early flight and I didn't have time to grab anything beforehand, but I knew there would be breakfast in first class so I didn't sweat it. At the gate I was the recipient of some awful news: the first class cabin had checked in full. At least there was still Economy Plus, with five extra inches of legroom, right? Wrong. To pay for my earlier display of hedonistic gluttony, the non-revenue gods had assigned me the middle seat in the second-to-last row of the plane. Where before I had free-flowing gin and fresh fruit, now I had one refill of ginger ale and neck whiplash from falling asleep with nothing to support my Weeble-like head (see fig. 1 below). When I landed, with my muscles aching, head pounding, and nothing to eat but my dignity, I knew I had just been taught a valuable lesson: It's better to pretend to be someone you're not (rich!) than to sit two rows from the bathroom.

fig. 1