Haves and the Have-nots

There's nothing quite like an airplane to emphasise the gulf between the haves and the have-nots.

Money talks. No where is it more apparent than in airplanes. It's a cruel world where the rich folks - or those working for rich companies which foot their travel bils - are clearly seperated from the rest.

If you are wealthy you sit right up in front in first or business class. If you are not, kindly join the unwashed way back in the economy or cattle class.

Everything is designed to emphasise the class divides!

It starts right from the time you check-in (red carpet versus ordinary grey ones), to how much luggage you can carry, to where you can kill time etc etc.

And it continues all the way into the plane - no queues, just stroll into an exclusive entrance - get seated with extravagant legroom, michellin-star food and more attentive service from prettier airhostess!

Oh and then they make you feel even more bad. The higher paying privileged ones deplane faster and be with their loved ones that much more quicker.

Man my poverty sucks!!

Back where I sit, we are packed like sardines in a can, the sponge in the headrest can disintegrate if you don't handle with care; inferior food served in plastic trays (make me feel humbled) and I can never ever catch the stewardess attenetion ever to get a (plastic) glass of water!!

Sigh!

Ya ya ok - I know I suffer from business class envy.

But its strange, other manifestions of rich versus not-so-rich divide never bothers me at all. I dont give a hoot if others possess the matieral accroutrements of modern life - nice bigger homes, gadgets, big cars, designer clothes, good looking rich husbands - which I most certainly lack.

For some strange reason, air travel has started to bring out the worst in me. And who can blame me when everything is crafted to stress the difference between the superior and the inferior.

I am LEO and apprantly have a big ego with a even bigger attiude and this stark divide makes a wee bit dent in my fragile ego :)

In anycase, I console myself, once you step off the plance, it's back to democracy. No matter how much caviar or Moet you've imbibed in the superior class, everyone has to walk through the same metal detector and be subjected to the same checks by immigration and no-where are these checks more mortifying and humilating than in the US and UK.

Besides, in the end, a flight is just that, a flight. It's not the journey that matters but the desitnation and what and "who" awaits you there. And if I have to go through this hell - I'll do it over and over again.