First Class Contract with America

Opening Post Disclaimer: I have spoken to my lovely wife about this blog and she is fully on board with people relating to issues in their own lives through things that come up in ours. This came through clearly in a conversation we had recently when she said, “I read Jen Lancaster’s blog and she talks about her husband all the time. He must be a pretty cool guy to put up with that. Sure you can talk about me in your blog.” 

People always ask her how she puts up with me all the time. Needless to say she is a pretty cool guy.

And now on to the real business at hand.

This weekend I was confronted with one of the most difficult choices in my life. I had just spent a wild and crazy week in Orlando and by wild I mean working fifteen hour days and by crazy I mean sleeping less than six hours a night. The remainder of my days were spent somewhere in that confusing place between professional and personal time—drinks with colleagues and members.  lady-BONE had come down to Orlando on Friday for a separate meeting on her own, and we were able to spend a few hours together after both of our meetings were done. We went on a nice walk to a distant but real Starbucks (not that fake nonsense they pass off in hotel lobbies).  We had the usual, t-BONE a grande soy 140 degree pumpkin spice latte, Tracey a grande earl grey soy latte not too hot. We then lunched by the pool, read the paper and headed to the airport.

This is where the hardest decision part comes into play. Upon arriving at the airport, I was told that I had been upgraded to first class, one of the few remaining perks of regular business travel. I was then immediately informed that my wife had not. Oh Shit! Anyway, can she sit with me, I asked. Good luck making that happen the gate agent retorted.

I mean what you do in this situation? We are all aware of the Seinfeld episode but really in the end what did Jerry and Elaine solve that can be useful in the modern world? NADA!

So I thought to myself how do I figure this out? I know, I’ll poll Facebook. I mean the ability to have instant feedback from friends has to be useful in some situation right. How could it be better used than figuring out how to resolve the case of the one upgrade couple? Not surprisingly just about every response came from my female friends and family saying I needed to give lady-BONE the upgrade. This was not the answer I was looking for.

I was tired, I was sore, and god dammit I earned that upgrade. I spent nights alone in weird places, eating crap food at the airport, putting up with screaming babies (more posts to come on this topic for sure) and taking 5am cabs to the airport that smelled so bad of B.O. that I would have lost my breakfast if I would have had time to eat breakfast. And by the way, where were my Bros on this one? Seriously none of you could respond saying, take it man you earned the upgrade.

In the end I took the seat. I can make excuses like it wouldn’t be fair to the other first class passengers to have a rogue among them, but I won’t.  I’m not proud what I did, but I did it anyway. I needed to sleep, I needed to make sure that I had room to stretch out and quite frankly I wanted a couple free G&T’s.

I propose the First Class Contract with America, for couples in the same quandary. If we can all agree to this now it will only make our lives easier in the future.

If one member of the couple gets a free upgrade, the husband should not feel bad about taking it if a. the alternative option is a normal economy seat with limited leg room (does not apply to weirdo reverse height couples where the man is shorter than his lady or on American Airlines where coach has enough leg room for a normal heighted man) b. he has worked more than 60 hours that week (unless the wife has worked the same or more hours) c. he is in need of or recently received medical attention. In all other cases the wife should get the upgrade.  I have already promised my wife that next time I get an upgrade and we are flying together she gets dibs. After that the t-BONES are following this new contract. I advise adoption of the same before you get stuck in a similar situation.

Stay thirsty my friends.