Thursday, July 1, 2004

I felt all self-important & special today as I flew first class back & forth to Atlanta for a meeting.  My shine was a little tarnished though as I pre-write this entry the old-fashioned way with paper & pen (not even my red fountain pen either since I've heard too many fountain pen / airplane horror stories) instead of straight onto my laptop.  First, I forgot to load the current copy of my blog there from my PC; and second and more important, my battery sucks and dies in 15 minutes.

I meant to start it on the trip up when I had more energy, but I got all involved eavesdropping on the woman next to me.  :)  Rich people really have a different reality at times.  And I quickly succumbed to the lure of being privileged.  I boarded first with quiet dignity.  I received 3 bottles of water (the lady next to me had a Bloody Mary, and Galahad goofed that I should also when I called him before we left), 4 cookies, 1 bag of snack mix, and a set of free headphones.  Remember the flight is only 90 minutes long, and the peasants in the back were lucky to get 4 ounces of some beverage.  I also skipped a 30 minute wait at Security by asking for the first class line.  A girl could get used to this.  ;)  Plus, it helped me to be relaxed for my presentation, which went very well if I may say so myself. 

I showed up at the meeting in time for lunch, ate my delicious sandwich from the Atlanta Bread Company, did my dog & pony show, laughed quite a bit since I have a good group to work with, and left to get back to the airport in plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely dinner of sand crab cake sandwich cuz when you think Atlanta, you think crabs.  :p

So now I'm sitting on the plane in my roomy, leather seat -- listening to the man two seats over although his conversation isn't nearly as interesting as the woman this morning.  He must have received a complimentary upgrade.  :)  Don't even get me started on the man next to me.  He's having some sort of testicular issue and having to adjust quite a bit, definitely not first class material. 

[Side Tangent: Wtf is wrong with men that they think this is socially acceptable?  A woman would never dare do something like that.  And if she were in extreme discomfort for some reason (tries not to think why anyone would be), she would at least try to disguise it a little bit instead of pulling & tugging away every 5-7 minutes.]

I think I wouldn't mind traveling as much if I could fly first class all the time.  I'm treated like a real person whose business is appreciated instead of like cattle whose presence is merely tolerated.  I'll take it as a lesson to remind myself to treat all of my customers with genuine enthusiasm even if they're doing dumb shit.  ;)

Ha, I'm on my fifth page already and grinning at my own thoughts.  I bet the people around me have formed some type of opinion about me and it may not be complimentary.  =)