An Interloper in the First Class Section

 

 

In the old days, air travel was considered glamorous and comfortable. But since 9/11, getting on a plane has not been the same. Nowadays when I fly, I try to remember something I heard from a nursing home worker who had a philosophic attitude about being hit, bitten, kicked and scratched by her patients who have Alzheimer's. The aide told me, "Every morning when I go to work, I say to myself, 'You're not going to win today.'"

When I travel by air, I warn myself, You're not going to win today. That helps me to not get impatient about inefficiency in the airport, or upset about discomfort on the plane.

During my odyssey back from Hawaii this past weekend, nearly everything that could go wrong did go wrong, including five and a half hours of turbulence over the Pacific, and a blizzard in my destination city of Milwaukee. But my misadventures took an unexpected turn when a cancelled flight resulted in me being re-routed back home through two other flights - both in first class seating!