Why I rued my upgrade to business class today.......
They give us too much food to eat and it looks delicious, but alas, not vegan. Never a good idea to stuff one’s belly at 35,000 feet. The seat is way too comfortable, in fact, it is so comfortable that it never gets in a position where one can sit up straight while eating. My mom always said, “Sit up straight, when eating. Don’t slouch!”. Too much food and bad posture for consuming a sumptuous repast??? Hmmm.......
One needs to know how to use the three forks and knives. One can’t afford to be uncouth like me who is petrified at the idea of a formal dinner due to lack of familiarity with silverware. Yes, I wasn’t paying attention when my mom implored me to learn. She had the foresight, I didn’t. After all, I am the kind of dude who sometimes drinks wine in a coffee mug at home. I can’t even remember the last time I sat at a formal dinner table where an elaborate array of forks and knives wrapped in a pretty, crisp napkin waited patiently for me to release them from the delicate, yet firm grasp of the napkin ring. By the way, who invented the custom of multiple knives, forks and spoons and why should one care? Why should eating - an intimate exercise which nourishes the mind, body and soul - be suffocated by such formality and ceremony to the extent that the boundless joys of placing food in your mouth should be stymied by the anxieties of “Oh shucks! am I doing this right????”. I grew up in India where people use hands instead of cutlery and, let me inform those who have never tried it, eating with naked fingers lends a unique, more appealing taste to the food. Before the food is placed in the mouth, the body makes contact with it and that “touch”, via sensory signals to the brain, lends an enhanced degree of intimacy to the process of dining and the food actually tastes better. Frank Bruni, are you listening??? One is consumed by abject horror at the sight of the smug silverware, laying right there before you, waiting to be picked as tremulous cold fingers inch closer to what is doomed to be the wrong choice. Yep, that first wrong choice, seals the reputation as one lacking sophistication. Thats it! It is over! Now, for the rest of the 8.5 hours one is doomed to that patronizing stare from the business class frequent flyer sunk deep in the next seat.
The next blow to an already dwarfed self worth comes when they deliver the wine list with a condescending smile. It is a further test of one’s refinement. They hand the wine list, float down the aisle and return with a determined look for the choice answer. Will it be the 2005 Masciarelli - Marina Svetic Montepulciano D’Abruzzo or the 2008 Masciarelli Villa Gemma or should it be the Illuminati Brut.....with my vegan meal??? Argh! “Ummm, just water please, thank you” and one is saved from embarrassment. However, today I was sitting in business class, after all. I am suddenly overcome with the compelling urge to order wine and it doesn’t matter that it is 10 in the morning in Italy. I chose the most aged red wine on the list and won the “smartest choice award” from the very pleased crew member who beamed a sparkling smile and muttered, “good choice”. It rendered me pink and giddy.
Oh! Yes, and that plush seat they plop us in - a misbegotten engineering marvel with a mind of its own. I think one should earn valuable school credits just for learning how to work that seat. Every section of the seat has a button assigned to it. The trick is to learn how to make all the buttons work in unison so one can be in that much envied “flat bed” position which every hapless soul at the back of the aircraft covets, while their tangled skeleton is trapped in the acutely claustrophobic confines of the economy class sarcophagus.
Okay, so now I find myself seated in business class after a last-minute unsolicited upgrade, the initial aura of euphoria faded and was replaced with trepidation of operating the engineering marvel without exhibiting the stresses of revealing that you are not a NASA scientist and have never before traveled aboard the Space Shuttle. Stealing glances at your neighbor and after several abortive attempts, my head is dangling backwards, my midsection is raised upwards and the legs are flailing lifelessly below. Ooops, that is not how it is supposed to be. Too late! I am a target already for a few smirky, one-raised eyebrow “first time in business class, eh?”-looks, but there is always that solitary “I get your pain, bro”-stare from the far corner wallowing in similar misery.
I missed my economy class seat back there, where food choices are limited and if they forget my vegan meal request (which happens often), then there are no food choices at all and fasting is recommended by a harried, underpaid, over-worked crew member who really wouldn’t give a crap whether I ate or not for 10 long hours. The cutlery is disposable and stress-free. The napkins are paper, not crisp, clean white cotton. The rickety food tray is bare, not covered with cloth. The seat is tiny and stiff and makes you sit erect throughout the 8.5-hour hop over the Atlantic (splendid for the back and digestion!) with no grueling multiple position options to battle with. Actually, for some unfortunate souls the seats are so small that once they get in, they are locked in! They have to be exhumed out of the seats to exit the aircraft. Only one red wine and white wine is served, not in glass bottles but in cartons these days, which appear very similar to juice cartons. Your inner sommelier in the arms of Morpheus is never rudely awakened and put to work.
Oye vey iz mir!
I hate it when they upgrade me to Business Class!
