Saturday, October 17, 2009

Is a seat upgrade worth two kosher meals?

I am willing to bet that you have never asked yourself this question. And frankly, neither did I until last week when I thought I was faced with precisely that dilemma.

On the first leg of our return trip to Israel midway through last week, Ari and I realized too late that for some inexplicable reason we were not on the list of people who requested kosher food. Mid-air there isn't a lot one can do about this and despite the flight crew's first instinct to blame it on me, they then tried to make amends by offering us non-kosher food!

When I declined their offer I suspect that they simply mentally filed me as an uncooperative passenger whom they had tried to appease and then, they washed their hands of me.

Obviously they didn't know me very well. In such situations I would compare myself to grease -- not so easy to scrub off. And that's when I went on my second plane-related rampage of the trip. Fortunately Ari is well versed in his mother's scene-making skills so it didn't phase him when, upon entering the plane for the second leg of our return trip, I told him to go ahead and sit down because I wanted to speak to the stewardess.

He knew enough to hightail it out of there no questions asked. (You have to train kids to do this; it's not their natural instinct.)

I then proceeded to question the poor unsuspecting stewardess about my kosher food for this segment of the journey. Naturally she checked her list and naturally, we weren't on it. First she tried to blame it on me saying that I must have been very late buying my tickets, but when I presented my ticket receipt dated July 26 and with "kosher food" listed in bold letters, she was hard pressed to continue with that tact. And that's when I went in for the kill.

I will spare you all the details because yes, they are gorry. Suffice it to say that two other kosher passengers were so taken with my performance that they offered me their meals. I declined. That would have let the airline of the hook way too easily. Plus, taking other people's kosher meals just transferred the problem from my "plate" to theirs. That didn't seem fair.

Now while the stewardess was busy trying to solve what I had pretty much positioned as a minor hate crime on the part of the airline, Ari was walking through the economy section of the plane. As I neared him he turned around and said: "Ema, turn around, our seats aren't here. I went too far."

With a quick glance I realized that seats 11a and 11c were not in Economy. We quickly turned around and found our fabulous seats in what BMI calls Premium Economy or something like that. Without going into details once again, it was simply too good to be true.

The problem was that I couldn't figure out if the airline had made a mistake or not. And considering that I had just made a bit of scene at entrance of the plane, I didn't feel like I was in any position to inquire. So I sat there for the rest of the flight trying to figure out what must have happened and what it could possibly mean. Was it a cruel joke from a higher power or just a fluke? And if it was a fluke, had I lost my ability to complain about my kosher food issue from such a fancy seat? Or was I simply going to be perceived as an overindulged complainer? Was I going to be found out and sent to the back of the plane or would the airline totally overlook its error? All this thinking was exhausting (although I had a great seat for an exhausted person).

I have no idea what the answers to these questions are, but I have to tell you that getting the big, fancy, cushy seat changed everything and left me perplexed for the rest of the trip home. Oh yes, and in the end, we also got kosher food. Speculate away. I sure am.

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