Keeping the Faith

At 5:45 a.m. I went down and found Kevin checking out so I joined him. Marriott didn’t have my Rewards number in the record so I added it, paid off the bulk of the bill with my casino winnings in Czech cash, and put the remainder on my United Mileage Plus MasterCard instead of AmEx because they only charge 1% commission. We went outside and saw that it was starting to rain. It took five minutes for a hotel cab to arrive because they had many guests all going to the airport at the same time. We put the 690 Kè ($17) fare on my hotel bill and gave the driver a voucher.

When we arrived at the airport I stood in a short line at British Airways checkin and got an aisle seat toward the front of Economy, making sure my bag was checked through to Los Angeles. Kevin was in Business Class on KLM but his line was longer and slower than mine. Finally he was checked through to Minneapolis and we went to another long line for exit immigration. I don’t know why the Czech Republic is so concerned with exit immigration but there is always a long line to get out of the country, perhaps left over from the days behind the Iron Curtain.

I hugged Kevin goodbye and headed up to the Star Alliance lounge where I talked my way in based on my same-day United ticket. I had a mineral water and then saw that my flight was boarding so I waved goodbye to the angel and walked down to gate A3. I had checked my wheels because of the previous experience on British Airways where they wouldn’t let me carry on my carry-on bag so I was lugging my luggage. Gate A3 had its own individual security because the British don’t trust these lesser countries but I made it through anyway.

We boarded 15 minutes before flight time, by rows this time. I was hoping for a delay so I could get my $100 from BizTravel but no dice. I was seated next to a couple old ladies from New Jersey but as soon as the doors closed I slipped up to the bulkhead seat to give them more room to pick a little, talk a little. I could still hear them through the purple haze as I shut my eyes and tried to get some sleep. I was awakened by a cheery British voice saying, “Breakfast?” I took one look at it—a thin slice of gray meat folded over a greasy triangle of yellow cheese—and politely declined.

We landed on time at Heathrow and had the shortest taxi I’d ever had there. I went through transit security and checked in with United. They called a driver to escort me to Terminal 3. He took me downstairs to the bus stop where a Star Alliance van drove up for my exclusive use. He drove me through dumpsters and piles of pipe to a back door that lead up some stairs to the Red Carpet Club. Pretty cool. I showed my ticket to the angel and headed into the First Class lounge where I ran smack into Keith, the steward. He made me a glass of mineral water and some finger sandwiches while I watched teenage girls perform gymnastics in the Olympics on TV and then read a bit of FlyerTalk on the slow and outdated Internet terminal.

They didn’t call my flight until about 15 minutes before scheduled takeoff. I said goodbye to Keith and then lugged my laptop bag to Gate 13. I boarded the 777 through the First/Business Class Jetway and took my seat, 1J, the same one I had on the way out. I had a glass of water preflight and took a look at the menu. I was not at all hungry but it was a long flight. We took off on time and the purser came to take my meal order. He acknowledged me for being a 1K, something that hadn’t happened recently, and I thanked him for it. I ordered filet mignon but said I was going to sleep for a few hours first. No problem. I once again made my own bed with no offers of help. No sleep suits on United so I put in the earplugs and slept in my clothes.

I woke up after about two and one-half hours and motored my bed to sit up like those old Kraft-O-Matic adjustable beds on late-night TV. The flight attendants were nice enough but once again the service was more perfunctory than lavish. There really wasn’t much difference from Business Class other than the seat. If I had paid $12,463.29 for this ticket I would really feel like a chump. I sat there for five or 10 minutes and one of the stewardesses refilled my plastic water glass, which hadn’t been collected on takeoff. She didn’t replace it with a real glass, or notice that I was now up and might want to eat, or anything. I rang the call button and then rang it again five minutes later. Finally the lady who had refilled my water poked her head out, looked around, and retreated into the galley.

I got up and walked into the galley. “Something must be wrong with my call button,” I said. She apologized and said she had looked at everyone but me. I said it was OK and told her I was ready to eat. She said that meant she would have to cook everything. I apologized for disrupting her schedule and requested the full meal service if possible. And champagne. A glass of champagne. She poured me a tall flute of 1992 Dom Perignon and I took a sip. For the first time in years I really enjoyed it. In fact I drank nothing else the whole flight.

Once the pump was primed the food came at a good pace. She brought me ham rather than crab cakes without comment. Perhaps they were out of crab cakes. The ham was tasty but had quite a few unappetizing strings of fat in it. The salad that followed was superb though with a delicious Roquefort dressing. The stewardess warned me off the filet mignon but I tried it anyway because I didn’t feel like chicken or sea bass. It wasn’t overdone but wasn’t a particularly tasty cut of beef. As a rule I don’t eat dessert so I passed on the ice cream and kept drinking glass after glass of creamy Dom Perignon.

I watched the best movie I’d seen in a while on the main movie channel: Keeping the Faith with Ed Norton, Ben Stiller, and Jenna Elfman. I bawled like a baby as the stewardess kept refilling my Dom Perignon. After the movie I chatted with another stewardess, 33-year veteran Melody, who started with United at the age of 20 in the Summer of Love. We had a great talk as I munched on just a few of the chocolates and drank champagne. There was no laptop power and my eyes were too tired to read so I just hung out with the crew. Americans generally make much better friends than they do servants anyway. One of them gave me an unused box of chocolates from Business Class to take home to my Hunnybear.

A couple hours before landing they served a wimpy tomato-lemon grass soup with a choice of chili-topped baked potato or something even more carboholic. I nibbled on the chili then settled in for landing 20 minutes early.

I called my Hunnybear as soon as we touched down to let her know I was home but she was busy in meetings all day so I had to take a cab. My bag came out last because British Airways hadn’t put a priority sticker on it. A customs agent flipped through my well-stamped passport and asked me if my business involved traveling a lot. Why, yes. Yes it does.

The taxi line between Terminals 5 and 6 was not actually under the “taxi” sign so I got confused but then hopped into a cab and listened to the driver curse under his breath as I told him I only wanted to go five miles. I apologized for the short trip, which even so cost $17 including tip. I caught up on my email and waited for my sweetie to come home from work.

The end.


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