Please Secure Your Own Mask Before Helping Others

I gave a big, friendly grin to the guy in the Cashmere sweater. He probably wasn’t used to getting looks like this from us poor folk as we marched solemnly through his spacious cabin, past the curtains, into Economy Class. His reaction was priceless. I gave it another try, this time to the large, balding man in a suit. The same perplexed and uncomfortable look crossed over his face. He cast his eyes down to his magazine.

Yet somehow we were a notch above all the other passengers who had to endure the hardships of the Economy Class. Before, when I slipped the man at the gate my boarding pass, instead of beeping once like for everyone else's, his little emachine beeped twice when It scanned my ticket. I was ushered to the desk where my parents and I were arbitrarily given $150 worth of upgrades. That’s right – emergency exit row seats.

When I got to my seat, I stretched out my legs (pretty far actually), and decided it would be good to review the literature on how to rescue my fellow travelers in case of an emergency. The flight attendant approached to interrogate all of the exit row occupants:

“Are you willing and able to help in the case of an emergency?” -– we all sort of muttered quietly in response.

“I need oral confirmation,” she demanded abruptly. Like school children, we all chimed in obediently, “Yes.” No need to tell her I was half blind and my mom had a bum leg.

Then we were in Minneapolis. It was like this:


On the second leg of the flight, I realized that this was the first time that I’d ever bought a one-way ticket. As someone who doesn’t travel super often, I started wondering if, in general, is the fact that you’re buying a one way ticket is a good thing, or not? On one hand, It means you’re off on an adventure – you don’t know when you’ll be back, you’re going with the flow. Or maybe it means that there’s just not enough left wherever you came from to bring you back any time soon. I’d like to think that it’s the former.