The good thing about NOT being a writer is whenever Microsoft Words dies on you while saving your completed work, you do not have to worry about being fired.
So the entire hour spent typing in a restaurant which gave me such interesting inspiration, gone. Anyhow, lemme tell my story anyhow. Anyhow.
As much as I hate flying in an airplane (the food, the seats and the person next to you), I love being in an airport. I feed on the pretense and atmosphere that an airport carries. The life and movement in an airport is like no other which you can find anywhere else. The diversity, the richest of the dark skins among the poorest of the whites. The weirdest of people who, interestingly can afford air travel. And when you see a white man lying asleep on the floor, he's probably the most adventurous person in the world. Then that moment that you came across a Vietnamese looking fellow, and suddenly he's uncivilized and dirty and probably rides the motorcycle in his home country. An hour ago, I've spent an amount of money in one of the many (?) restaurants here in Dubai Airport, for some pastries and a coffee. That restaurant offers a buffet of internation breakfast for roughly the same amount of money. And just directly opposite that restaurant, about a hundred people are lining up for the same food, but only for free. Now don't let my spend-dad's-money-like-water issue bump you out, hear me out aight?
Since the beginning of air travel, which was initially meant for the rich and glamorous, the rich and glamorous has been trying to widen this invisible gap that separates them, with the non-them. I do believe that commercial airlines are nothing but a method of transportation, which focuses on their glorified restaurant which travels across continents. People do believe in quick and hassle-free transportation, of course, but rich people, they believe in not including anyone else in their travels too. First Class lounges, separate terminals, and lobsters on a plane were meant precisely to do that. Only that. If I wanted to eat with poor people, I'd go a McDonalds, but I'm paying 10 times more than you, just so that I don't have to look you in the eye while eating my lobsters. Then people like Richard Branson and Tony Fernandes came along and “changed” the game for those people. Now everybody can have a taste of what being rich is all about, well sort of. It’s like buying a knock off China-made iPhone for your 15 year old child, saving a thousand dollars too. Heck, even monks are flying nowadays. Today, what’s left that separates the rich and the not so rich, the thin cloth dividing the First Class folks, with the rest of the population. If you’re not behind that piece of cloth, you’re not really anything.
Middle class people, or middle-classers as I want to refer them as here, rule the airports. We will rape the airport until every drip of her free items is pooped out. We’re filling our baby bottles with the water from the water fountain, we’re missing our flights for that cup of free coffee, and yes, we will test every single perfume they have to offer in the duty free shops. Middle-classers strive in this airport environment simply because of the climate that it is grown in. No, we’re not stinking rich, but we’re not poor as well. And when the lounges are 40USD$, I’m paying! The day that Emirates Business Class Lounge opened to the public for an entrance fee of 45USD$, it became a market for the not-too-poor. Unclassy folks were putting sandwiches in their pockets, stealing soaps and shampoos, leaving the real rich guys stranded, with nowhere to run. If you’re not flying First Class, you’d be better off lining up in Burger King, than be stuck in a “lounge”.
Directly opposite the restaurant where I had my expensive breakfast, a hundred people are still lining up for their free food. In the restaurant, there were about 15 people, most of us on our own table in front of the laptop(the place did not even have wi-fi). That image, is the definition of division of class. Separated by the shops, looking directly at each other. Would you pay 20USD$ for a cup of coffee? Maybe, just maybe, in our lifetime, rich folks will think of a new way of defining themselves again. The pretense is endless; the air is thick with the sense of superiority. “I might not be rich, but I can afford the lifestyle, just until the announcement lady calls my flight number. Just for a moment.”
Perhaps one day we will see a First Class only flight, I mean they have all-suites hotel everywhere don’t they? Perhaps we will even have airline companies devoted totally to serving them rich bastards. Until that day, which I believe is not too far away, I’ll enjoy my 20USD$ coffee, until my dad finds out.
Au Revoir !
