The View from First Class

I’m a nervous traveler. With practice and conscience effort, I’ve learned how to hide most of the tells. When the gate agent called my name over the public address system all that practiced and artificial calm was no more.

“Mr. Douglas, can I change your seat assignment?”

I’m a nervous traveler, but not about seat assignments. “Sure.” I quickly returned to a state of calm.

She slid the new boarding pass across the counter and pointed to the seat assignment—3F, F-Cabin. “I hope you don’t mind.”

It took a moment for me to understand what this meant. Then it became clear. I would be taking my first trip by aircraft in first class. The nervousness returned with a vengence. Then the unspoken questioning began. Would I do everything right? Would the other passengers know that I did not belong in first class? Would I embarrass my Mother? Would the cabin staff know that they a regular person was mixed in with the travel elite? Would it be so obvious that all the others in first class would know?

The boarding and settling-in process went smoothly. The overhead bins had plenty of space. All of my fellow first class travelers did not appear to know that I had somehow been allowed into the front portion of the aircraft. So far, so good.

Something was wrong with my seat. It appeared to be a medium-sized, leather-covered love seat not a single person seat. Would I have to share the couch with someone else? How would that actually work? There appears to be only one lap belt. Would we have to share the belt. Lock all of us into the same belted/unbelted/rebelted schedule? I scanned the rest of the cabin and confirmed that only one person was sitting in each of the seats.

I tried to keep the sound of my exhaled relief to a minimum.

I sat down, buckled in and stretched out. Really stretched out. Tried to touch the seat in front of me and couldn’t stretched out. What would I do with all this extra space?

Had I known how much space I would have to myself, I might have considered renting it out to a small family that needed a vacation.

You can see in the picture that I am pointing my toes and am a mile away from the seat in front of me.

Now that I was seated, I began looking at all the accommodations I would have for the three hour flight. An extra wide armrest seperated 3E from 3F. It was made of two padded doors that I guessed might contain a secret compartment or some special first class only amenity.

And the secret was revealed—it was a phone. One dedicated for each seat. One per row would not be enough for the privileged folk in the front of the plane. Mine went unused, but it was comforting to know that is was right below my elbow if the need came up.

The aircraft was pushed back and we were soon airborne. I always enjoy watching the ground rush by at three or four times the speed I achieve on the freeway. Soon, my attention was back inside the cabin.

Hidden just ahead and slightly to the right of the phone was a small, retractable drink shelf. Much like a child opening presents on Christmas morning, I pulled the little tray out and giggled with delight. Some of the others in first class looked in my direction and scowled. Apparently giggling in first class is not approved behavior.

I cycled the drink tray in and out a few times just for fun. I planned to get a drink, even if I wasn’t thirsty just so that I could use the drink tray. Tray out. Tray in. Garrison giggles. Tray out. Tray in. More giggling.
I wondered what other special ammenities I would find. I looked to my right armrest and spotted another padded cover, similar to the one to my left.

I flipped the soft door up and spotted a machined aluminum contraption of unknown purpose. Was this some sort of safety device? Perhaps it was a handle to my own personal escape hatch? A well-worn leather handle looped out from the top of the metallic device. At the risk of being forcefully expelled from the aircraft I tugged on the handle. The assembly moved, stubbornly at first, then suddenly gained speed. At first I was worried that I might have damaged the unknown mechanism. No alarms went off. No lights were flashing. I pulled some more. The parts move higher. Another tug and the thing fell broken into my lap.

Now I was really worried—the white panel was cracked down the middle. Oh, shit, their gonna be really pissed when they find out I broke their airplane. I grabbed to top half of the broken panel to see if it was still attached to the other half, and to my delight, realized that the panel was hinged in the middle and not broken. I unfolded the ‘broken’ top half up, then moved it across to the left, and finally down flat. Ahhh, now I get it. It’s my service tray. My own personal, folding, hide-away service tray. I felt special. I closed the tray and continued to search for more goodies.

If you look closely you will see the small button you push to recline the seat back. I pushed the button and reclined. Pushed the button and reclined some more. A third push, and at the risk of getting a glimpse up the nostrils of the passenger behind me, I decided to move back just a little bit more. I never did recline the seat all the way.

The flight attendents came through the cabin, a female to the left and a male on the right side. They passed out small, steaming cloth towelettes from a tray. This was new to me. I was not sure what to do with the hot cloth. Since the attendent was passing it directly to me, I instinctively reach out and he placed it in the palm of my hand. As is my normal procedure when exposed to a new social situation that carried with it certain expected behaviors, I did what I have always done—I looked around and copied everyone else. They were all washing their hands and some were even covering their faces in the hot cloth. I mimicked their behaviors and stiffled a scream as I burned my sensitive face with the hot rag. Apparently the regular first-class travelers build up a tolerance to the steam-rag face-cover exercise.

I folded the cloth and placed in on the armrest. Soon the attendent came by with a different tray and a pair of tweasers to collect it. What challenge would I face next?

In no time at all, the attendents were back with what appeared to be linin bedsheets. Quickly scanning the cabin to see the expected behavior I realised that it was not a bedsheet, but a table cloth. A personal, made from freshly ironed linen, table cloth. Once again, I felt special.

Food orders were taken. I don’t remember what I said. My brain was swirling with all this new social behaviors and interactions I had been experiencing. My capability to process all the new experiences was taxing my ability to process and understand it all. I was not keeping up.

A tray of food appeared in front of me. And then a can of beer appeared. And then a glass—a real glass. A real glass made from break on the floor into a hundred foot-shredding-slivers, glass. It was almost too much for me to comprehend. My eyes started to glaze over and roll back in their sockets. I fought back and clung to the last shreds of the world that appeared to be slipping away.

After regaining some sense of normalcy, I calmed down slightly. Apparently I had ordered some sort of chicken dinner. Not a rubber chicken, serve the masses at a conference kind of chicken. It was a tasty, well seasoned, perfectly cooked chicken breast. Freshly steamed green beans in a light butter sauce were a nice contrast to the freshly mashed potatoes. These were potatoes that had never seen the inside of a bag or box. These were no factory processed, vacuum dehydrated potato surrogate that’s prepared in a microwave. Oh no, these were real potatoes—Grandma made ‘em for Thanksgiving potatoes.

I ate everything and would have had seconds if offered them. I was not offered seconds. I still felt special.

Then a craving for something sweet came over me. As if on queue, the attendant appeared with yet another tray, this time covered in small paper bags folded close so as to keep their contents hidden. Oh what could this be?
The bag was warm. It was as if the contents had just been removed from an oven then placed in the bag, then placed in my hand. Warm. In my hand. It was the chocolate chippiest cookie I had ever had.

The plane was soon on the ground and I made the difficult transition back to the real world. As I exited the aircraft I looked over my shoulder and with a tear forming in my eye, said my quiet goodbye to F-Cabin.