I Accidentally Arrive in Style

After a three hour layover in Atlanta, it finally came time for me to start my journey. Delta flight 147 began to board,beginning with passengers in Zone 1. I looked down at my ticket, and it read “Zone 9”. After everyone else had boarded the plane, I was still in the terminal, leaning against a support column. When the call for Zone 9 came, I confidently strode up to the gate and handed my ticked to the the airline employee. He fed it into the machine.

Errrp.

A red light flashed and the the machine croaked like a dying swan. My heartsank.

Errrp.

Errrp.

Errrp.

“I´m sorry,” he said, “go ask at the ticket counter.” Shaking with hesitation, I approached the counter and handed the woman my ticket. “Won´t work,” I croaked. Saying nothing, she took my ticket and ripped it in two. The seconds tickedby excruciatingly slowly, punctuated by the frantic clicks of her fingers onthe keyboard. Finally, a new ticket came out. “Here you go,” she said,“seat 2A”

“Thanks, I mumbled.”

I stepped on the plane, the last one to board, and the doors closed behind me. Before me, I saw seat 2A, padded and leather upholstered, with a complementary bottle of mineral water, and seat 2B occupied by a stern-looking Argentinian businessman in a very expensive looking blue sweater. Buisness class! I was horrified. I don´t know how to “do” business class.

Quickly, I came up with a plan of action: play possum. Immediately after takeoff, I leaned back my seat and pretended to fall asleep. After about an hour, a flight attendant came by. 'Blast! I thought. I´ve been found out!

“Will you be joining us for dinner, sir?” he asked. No, I wanted to say,I´m planning on going skydiving in about 20 minutes, so I won´t be sticking around.

I ended up ordering fruit, cheese and water, despite the repeated attempts of the flight attendant to get me to try a nice pinot noir. I was worried the airline might try to charge me for the upgrade, and I figured it would be pretty hard to argue my way out of it after eating grilled salmon with a lemon-caper sauce and downing (illegally, of course, I´m still underage) half a bottle of wine.

After dinner, I tried to sleep (for real this time) and began to wish that Ihad taken the flight attendant up on his offer. I slipped on my headphones, listened to some Miles Davis, and settled back for a long, sleepless night,bouncing with the turbulence up and down in my wonderfully comfortableleather seat.