So, Mrs. Jailer is more than a little angry about me and our college freshman jailette heading off to Paris-Amsterdam-Cambridge UK about two minutes after her last class finished at college. True, she could have started her summer job; likely should have, but in my defense my wife is recalling our days at University of California where we could earn an entire year’s tuition with a crappy summer job. Trust me, them days is gone, and being a hostess at our local diner is but a single sand on the beach of a private university tuition.

To be sure, Mrs. J. would have liked to have gone on this trip as well, but as I patiently pointed out to her, “times is tough and one of us needs to stay home and work.” But, being conciliatory I tried to assuage her that our daughter and I were going coach on some island-based airline (over a half a dozen tries for an upgrade on Air Tahiti Nui proved fruitless, but thankfully their non-stop LAX-CDG service is quite painless).

Strangely, my wife was not assuaged by our lack of upgrades, and she recalled (much as my father recalled walking uphill both ways to school in the snow) that as college students we struggled to travel, and toughed it out on all-night trains and youth hostels and not in Starwood Luxury Collection type places. But, such is the curse of the affinity-pointed leisure class.

Besides, how much longer is our little jailette going to want to travel with her old man, particularly after she was twice assumed to be Mrs. Jailer when checking into Paris hotels, and thrice taken for my girlfriend in Amsterdam….Yuck?