There is no way this is happening

With my seat FULLY reclined, a glass of champagne at my side and an incredible meal in my belly, I write. Yes today is a good day my friends. I was bumped up to “business class” on my British Airways flight back to the states. I mean I am actually wishing that this flight were longer…

This is what I'm talking about...


It all started this morning when I walked into the Madrid airport. I was preparing myself for the first of two 3.5 hour layovers when I realized that I hadn’t reserved a seat for my flight from London to Washington. For most people that wouldn’t really be an issue, but for people who are 6’3”, sitting in a normal seat for 8 hours is not pleasant. Normally I reserve an emergency row or something similar so that my legs aren’t banging into the seat in front of me the whole time. But this time I was going to have to deal with whatever I ended up with.

I started thinking if there was any way I could avoid a normal seat. I could find someone with a good seat and beg them to switch with me. But that probably wouldn’t work because they wouldn’t have picked that seat if they didn’t want it. That woudn’t work, but what if I casually asked the flight attendant for a new seat and she casually showed me to an empty seat in first class. It could happen!

I had a really good feeling about it. I seriously prayed, right then as I was walking, that God would somehow work it out for me to sit in first class. After I prayed about it I still felt pretty good about it, what’s stopping God from bumping me up? I mean sure he probably won’t, but there isn’t anything that says he couldn’t. So I found my terminal and plopped down for a good read. The longer I sat there the less and less likely it seemed that anything would happen. I would probably just end up between two severely overweight people with B.O. [After the bus rides I have had over the last few days I really wouldn’t have been surprised if that had happened. But that is something I will write about later.]

I spent the rest of the day in the airport. 3 more hours in Madrid, then a 2 hour flight, then a 4 hour stop in London and then I saddled up for the 8 hour flight home. FINALLY they called the boarding for my flight and I joined the seemingly endless line of people. I looked out the window and saw that we weren’t even flying on a 747! It was a lousy 777 and the seats in the regular section are even SMALLER on those. This trip was going to suck.

Finally I made it to the reception desk area thing and the woman took my ticket. She started typing something into the computer and I thought, oh boy what’s going on. She took my ticket, scratched out the seat number and wrote a new one. I thought, “great, at least before I had a window seat [I had realized I had a window seat] now what will I end up with?” The new seat was 11-f. I walked down to the plane and got on. I started walking down the isles past the those gigantico seats where all the rich people sit [the ones with the dividers and the reclining chairs] at this point all hope of getting a good seat was lost. I saw the seat number 11-f right there in the business class section and thought, “Oh great, thanks for mocking me you stupid airplane designers. Did you have to make it so that you reused numbers? I mean why does there have to be an 11-f for the good section and the crappy one?” I kept walking, expecting the numbers to start over at one once I left first class. But they didn’t. They just got bigger. Did I get bumped up? NO WAY! Before I got my hopes up though I checked with the flight attendant. I showed her my ticket and she pointed me back to the front with a big smile. I seriously started skipping down the aisle. I mean up to this point the day has sucked. Bad. But my prayers had been answered. No getting around it. I asked God to make a way and he did!

By this point I was pretty giddy, I mean this is the section that has the curtains closing it off from the other section so that the punks in the back can’t see you eating your organic macadamia nuts. [Yeah, forget the peanuts, they go for the real deal. The king of nuts.] Before I could even get my stuff into the overhead locker, a flight attendant asked me if I wanted some champagne. “Uh yah…” I sat down in my HUGE seat and started scoping it out…

The seat fully reclines…All the way like a bed. You can even adjust the lumbar support...I am stretching out my legs right now and they fit! I looked to my right and saw a young guy about my age that also looked pretty excited to be there and sure enough, he got bumped up too! We toasted our champagne. This was perfect, because people are either really excited to be in business or totally bored of it and the bored people don’t want to be bothered by some punk who is excited about some macadamia nuts. But thank the Lord, this guy was excited like me, and every time something new came around we just looked at each other and gave the “Awwww yeahhh” nod. When they brought out the menus for dinner I couldn’t believe what I had been missing out on my whole life. The menu was huge! There were 4 choices for each course and the wine menu had about 8 different choices. Not to mention there was an open bar.

I had salmon for my appetizer, incredible chicken and potatoes for the main course and an awesome chocolate torte for desert. Normally on airplanes the food is good for being on an airplane. But this food was just really good, stuff that I would be really impressed with no matter where I was. This whole time I have just been thanking God for this unexpected blessing. I mean what a great way to wrap up a great trip.

Now I am going to sleep for a little while in my BED. Praise the Lord!