First Class
So I’ve decided to start this blog at 31,000 feet, somewhere over Kansas. According to the seat-back screen, our plane is currently passing over the city of Lebanon, KS. Were I to lean over my wife, slide up the window shade and look down, within view would probably be the geographical center of the contiguous United States. I hear there’s a monument. It’s almost certainly irrelevant, but I am starting this effort – at least in one sense – centered.
In every other way, however, I’m probably a little off target. I am, for example, on my way to southern California for a three-day self-help conference. “Self Help” is probably inaccurate, I believe the focus is entrepreneurship and motivation and very energetic women. It’s kind of my wife’s thing, but I’m tagging along for three reasons:
- My wife is my favorite person, she’s very excited about this and I’m backing her play.
- The program alleges that the hours I generally waste in front of a screen during evenings and weekends could be repurposed to develop additional streams of income (instead of consuming additional hours of Netflix). Since I’ve already watched all of Stranger Things and Black Mirror, extra income sounds interesting.
- Chicago is currently boasting a negative wind-chill and 14 inches of snow, while Irvine (our destination) has blue skies and is holding steady at 70 degrees.
Plus, as alluded to in the title of this missive, my wife found a fantastic fare and we are flying first class. This isn’t our usual mode of transport (we’re more of a rental car couple) and we’re enjoying the perks. This, however, has led to my current dilemma.
There are lot of benefits to first class travel – big seats, free baggage, easy boarding and probably a lot more that I don’t realize because I don’t do this very often. I’ve enjoyed all of that and am now contemplating the first-class perk that might interest me the most – complimentary drinks. I’m on vacation, we escaped a very cold place through some kind of miracle (out of O’Hare in the midst of blizzard), and I could really go for a glass of whiskey. This flight features Woodford Reserve, which is a very respectable Kentucky straight bourbon variety of the genre.
It is, however, 8:30 on a Sunday morning and everyone around me is sipping at either orange juice or tea. So it’s kind of a jackass move. Then again, I’m kind of a jackass. Here comes the attendant…
…and all hail alcoholism. The only question when I made my order? “Single or double?”