Flying First Class, Up in the Sky

My first class ticket is a crumpled piece of paper that I hand sheepishly to the lady at the gate. I feel the glares on my back from the people behind me. I’m usually one of them, resenting how The Man allows some to board the plane first because their pockets are fat.

I try to get onto the plane as gracefully as possible. By that I mean, I knock my head into an overhead bin. But, I recover with grace. I pull my chin up. This is first class. I walk with poise to my seat, ignoring the fact that my head now hurts and that there’s a  frustrating little piece of hair that I now know has flown out my of sleek ponytail.

I hurry to put my bag in the overhead bin, but then I remember this is first class. Time does not matter in first class. All warnings to board the plane quickly were for all those people out there. Flight attendants are in abundance in first class. One offers to help me lift my bag into the overhead bin, while another offers me a beverage. Yes, a beverage before the flight. Feeling fancy, I order cranberry juice because that’s about as close as I can get to any alcoholic beverage they could offer me.

I sit in the middle row, in an overly large plush seat. Even the seat belt is padded because first class people have much more delicate intestines, I guess. There’s this huge arm-rest between me and the person sitting next to me. It’s almost the size of an actual table! I put my large copy of Democracy in America on it, hoping that it won’t seem like I’m hogging my partner and my shared space. He gives me a little smile then puts his glasses down on a similar over-sized arm on his left. I am amazed, bewildered, flabbergasted that I have so much space.

The fantastic service continues for the rest of the flight. I am given my own breakfast: a very fancy bowl of raisin bran. Every time I run out of something to drink, it’s not a struggle to flag down an attendant, ask her for another drink, only to be rejected. No, they bring me more bottles of water than I can handle. I’ve barely finished the first drink, when someone hurries to offer me cookies or pretzels or actual snacks people would want and another tiny little bottle of water. I drink so much during the flight, I make multiple trips to the bathroom in the course of five hours; I’m horribly embarrassed because, as we all know, first class people don’t pee.

My fellow first classers take it all like pros. They all are quite adept at looking at their laptops and acting busy and bored. They do not get excited when breakfast comes. They do not have screaming babies or over-sized luggage. They are all well-dressed pros, who speak quickly. One man even beats the stewardess in asking for a drink. Another falls asleep before we’re even in the air. My partner in the middle section is writing a dense looking power point on chemistry research. He does it so much better than myself, who spreads papers all over our shared space in planning an outline for my research paper.

The only thing that disappoints me about these folks is that they don’t know how to take advantage of a window seat. It’s a rare clear day, and we are flying out of Seattle, which is nearly always a promising view. But, everyone around me elects to keep his or her window closed. Maybe there’s something I’m missing about what it means to be a first class passenger. All I know is I’ve been flying on airplanes for years and the views from the window seat have never lost their magic.

In a study break, I decide to watch an episode of Madmen, nostalgic for the golden age of air travel, even though I’m forty years to young to have experienced it. I cross my legs demurely without the struggle of banging them into the seat in front of me. Ahh this is the life, I think. A few minutes later, I realize I have a foot rest and reiterate the thought to myself in a sublime spoiled bliss.

The How I Met Your Mother Finale Argued

Anyone who says that my generation lacks depth in the way they communicate today, this is a text message conversation that I wrote up. It’s between a good friend and I, who have been debating about How I Met Your Mother for Years. Here we try to reach a consensus on our differing feelings about the finale.

“Nobody wanted Ted and Robin together! The entire last season was about Barney and Robin and Ted moving on. Then the finale just said, ‘Just kidding.’ Plus it made it look like the entire story was about Ted settling for the mother.”

“That’s not what it was about at all! The show is about two people that Ted was in love with. It makes all that Ted and Robin crap more significant.”

“It was significant to begin with because it was about their friendship and the people you have to know and date before you meet the right person. Those people shape and get you ready for the person you’re meant to be with.”

“No. Not nine season in. Not the day before her wedding. At that point, it’s horribly insignificant. With this ending everyone ended up the best way for their character. Ted was with with the person he was meant to be with, and, if she hadn’t died, he would’ve been with her forever. I mean, if anything, it’s the story of how he settled for Robin.”

“No, I just think it’s wrong. I think they may have decided on the ending without mapping out where they wanted everything else to go. At the end, they were stuck.”

“I think they knew they wanted Ted and Robin to end up together somewhere down the line. In the end, they made each other happy, and this was a much more realistic ending for both life and a sitcom.”

“But, they didn’t make each other happy! To me, Ted and Robin was always kind of forced, especially in the later seasons.”

“That’s why at the end they started showing that they were perfect for each other. I agree it felt forced, but it doesn’t with this ending. This whole time we’ve been watching them go back and forth like it was meaningless because we just thought it was annoying, but it was really character development.”

“No, see by divorcing Barney and Robin, so she could pursue her career undid most of her character development for the past nine seasons. That character development, of Robin choosing love over work, is the only thing that could’ve convinced me that she and Ted worked.”

“But, she didn’t necessarily choose work over love. Not like she did in the past.”

“Yes, she kind of did. Instead of trying to make it work with Barney, she pursued her career instead.”

“There wasn’t a way to make that work though. Other jobs she could have left or gotten a new one, but she was an anchor for a major network. You can’t just give that up!”

“Yes, she could’ve quit. But, it was unreasonable for her spouse to ask her to do that. I feel like if she and Ted had gotten married at the same time she and Barney did, then the same thing would’ve broken them up. Also, I think it was backtracking on Barney’s growth that he would be so uncompromising for Robin. The whole reason that Barney and Robin worked better than Ted and Robin is that Barney was willing to not have kids and be mobile for Robin. He was willing to let Robin go first. Ted wanted completely different things. Also, Ted let Robin go!”

“He had to at the time! That Barney could even be married to her and make that decision shows great character development. He identified with different needs than he thought he had. Ted did get everything he wanted with Tracy. Being with Robin just made them both happy.” 

“I think Robin and Ted made each other happy circa 2006. I feel like they were more in love with the memories of each other then their actual romance. Plus, they spent almost as much time convincing us that Barney and Robin were actually good for each other. That always felt more natural to me. They were very real with each other. I feel like Ted was always in love with the idea of Robin, and Robin knew that. So, she had to hid her insecurities from him. But, with Barney, she was okay feeling and being a little messed up because Barney was kind of broken too.”

“Towards the end, I never got the impression that Barney and Robin would work. I think that relationship defined their character more than Robin and Ted defined theirs.”

“It doesn’t make their relationship any more organic. That they were affecting each other and growing up together vs Ted and Robin, who were just sort of two people stubbornly trying to date each other despite their inability to let each other change anything about the other because their core values were in such conflict.”

“Think about what’s changed! Robin has the career she wanted. Ted has/had the family he’s always wanted. Things are different from the past.”

“I think in the end it just felt redundant to me. It felt like they ignored who Barney had become, did whatever they wanted with Robin, and undermined the whole point of the show: Ted’s unpredictable path to the love of his life. Not ‘Ted’s story about the love of his life that was really all about another woman.'”

“The thing is, it was about the path the love of his life. In those last five minutes, we watched tragedy strikes that path and the show became about overcoming those moments and chasing what made you happy. Which, in the long run, was kind of the whole point of the show. Barney was never meant to be married. He just wasn’t. He never believed in it, and, at his core, that’s who he was. Robin only wanted to be happy with someone, and in the end she found that.”

“I disagree. You said earlier, Barney, recognized a new found desire to be married. So, I don’t see why he couldn’t be happy with Robin, his first real love and women that changed him. Change him without any conscious effort to. As for Ted, the story was always about his journey to the mother, and the last five minutes could not undue years of that message.”

I actually added that last comment just now because both of us could’ve done this for hours because we both like to have the last word.