Day 28: June 28, 2009 (first class vacation)

Position: Traveler

Number of Drinks on Plane: 4-5

Plane Ticket Price: $50-$70 

Hot Towels: 1

Hours: 1hr 53min

For my vacation, I'm headed to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. Since my brother is a pilot for Continental Express, I get ridiculously cheap flights anywhere Continental flies. I hop a regular standby flight to Houston, then, while trying to trade my Cancun standby pass in for a seat, the gate agents ask if I want first class. "How much will that cost me?" I ask. Ten to twenty dollars. "Why not?" 

I get to board early with all the other first class passengers, and the flight attendant immediately asks if I'd like something to drink. I think of the nicest beer I can. "Heineken, please." It's been a long time since I've had Heineken, and it tastes wonderful. The other passengers begin boarding the plane and have to pass by me and the rest of the first-classers drinking our cocktails and beers. I feel a mixed sense of pleasure and guilt, a little, "Look at those poor suckers," and, "God, I feel like an asshole; does anyone want some of my beer?" But I have to say, I also feel special. I imagine each person passing by notices my less than impressive wardrobe––brown cords with worn knees and a hole from my bike chain, hand-me-down collared shirt that appears in the last three years of family Christmas photos, and dirty running shoes––and thinks, He must be someone famous; that's why he can dress that way. The rich can be as eccentric as they want.

After take-off, I order another Heineken, and it's served with, what's this, cashews not peanuts. Cashews seem so upper class while peanuts now seem somehow pedestrian. I look out my window and realize I don't have to deal with some pesky wing obscuring my view. Even the views are better in first class.

The pilot announces the crew will be through the cabin shortly with a beverage service, while first class will be getting a "cold plate." Jesus, are they trying to start a riot? We don't want those poor fools in coach to know what's going on up here. The pre-flight drink rub-in-the-face was bad enough. Oh, and now my beer is served with a real glass glass, not one of those wasteful plastic cups that holds a little more than a shot of soda or water.

Then the hot towels come. There's no other way to put it: the hot towel is the best kept secret of first class, worth the extra cost itself. We all wipe our faces down, like we've been working and sweating all day, in preparation for our cold plates, which makes its own kind of sense. We throw the now tepid towels wherever we want––arm rest, tray––and the flight attendant picks them up with silver tongs.

I ask what comes on the cold plate, and then order mine without meat. The cold plate is served on a bed of lettuce covering a white, ceramic plate. There are a variety of cheeses, a fruit bowl (containing strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, and melon), crackers, a cucumber slice (how silly of me to confuse it with a proletariat pickle slice), an empty space where the meat was supposed to be, and a nut brownie bar. I unravel my real silverware from the green, cloth napkin and attack the cheeses and fruit like a homeless man who hasn't eaten in a week.

Though my beer is still nearly full, they offer red or white wine with the cold plate. I choose white. It's summer, why not? So I'm double fisting in first class, and I glance around to see how my fellow first-classers are doing. I'm looking for that knowing nod the wealthy use among themselves. We're all in this together. We get it, they don't. But all I see among the chosen twenty are mostly white people, half of whom could be firmly placed in the husky to overweight category. They lift meats and cheeses to their mouths or swish wine. 

After they remove my plate, I order another Heineken and settle into my large, comfortable seat, thinking a nap is in order. When I'm halfway through my beer, the super cool, African-American flight attendant walks down the aisle holding a bottle of each kind of wine in her hands. "Hey, y'all, we only got twenty-five minutes. Who wants some more wine?" Everybody laughs, and I ask for more white. It's like a party up here. 

So this is what being wealthy is all about: getting the good stuff and feeling special, one big party. I wonder to myself: Were the three beers, wine and cold plate worth the extra $50-$110 for the other first-classers (turns out it was only "business class"––the gate agents misspoke) and $20 for me? That's almost the same price as drinking in coach. Yes, it's only money (if you have it), and there's no guarantee this bird isn't going into the big drink today.

I stretch out my legs and pine for another hot towel. Then I look out at the beautiful, aquamarine water surrounding a coral reef in the ocean below, while a soldier on R&R with his wife in row one talks about the military suicide rate in Afghanistan to another passenger, and I think I might order one more bag of cashews to tuck away and eat in my $8 hostel room tonight.