Traveling First Class With Your Grandchild

by Xtreme Grandparents: Rubin Carson & Marilynn Record

F. Scott Fitzgerald had it right when he said the rich were different than you and me. How can you tell? They fly Business Class while we squeeze into Coach with peanut bags. Enter my friend Sam who developed the George Foreman Grill. He's plenty rich, but different than Marie Antoinette. On my 79th birthday, instead of letting me eat cake, he sent me two up-graded tickets to London on British Airways.

Marilynn thought it was a bad omen. "He thinks you're going to die soon."

I tried to comfort her. "Maybe he had air miles that were going to expire."

Marilynn couldn't go due to her work schedule, so I invited grandaughter Taryn, 18 going on 84. She had traveled with me many times on BA but never in Club World. We arrived at the BA check-in feeling like Liza Doolittle at her first fancy ball. There were long lines snaking half way around the airport in front of Coach. I tried to ignore the frustrated hordes but couldn't. It seemed like years ago that I was one of them. "I feel guilty." "Chill, Pops. It's not your fault Sam had frequent flyer miles he was going to toss away anyway." It was obvious that she'd kicked things over with Marilynn.

Soon we were relaxing in the confines of the Club World Lounge. This meant a pleasant hour of quaffing fine liquers and finger sandwiches. Time to leave. A uniformed attendant appeared and escorted us to the gate. We boarded first while the Coach passengers stood behind ropes glowering at us.

Taryn whispered: "Don't they remind you of those poor people trying to escape from the Titanic?" "Please don't mention the Titanic," I said.

We enjoyed more of the high life when we were airborne. Course after course of impeccably prepared food arrived on elegant china and silver. The moment the cheese and dessert cart was wheeled in, the fasten seat belt sign turned on. Big time turbulance.

Taryn grabbed my arm. "I'm scared, Pops."

The wine had made me expansive. Maybe too expansive. "We're lucky sweetheart. At least we would be dying together."

She paled with outrage. "Gimme a break, Pops, I'm only eighteen!"

The Brits love to suffer with mystery plumbing and rickety stick shift, but make up for it with sleeper seats. The device is a high-tech cocoon of DVD, TV, and gizmos which fold into a 180 degree flat bed. I never sleep on a plane, but the next thing I knew, we were an hour from Heathrow and breakfast was being served. "What would you like sir?" "Fried Kippers, please."

Taryn threw a blanket over her head in embarrassment, but the stewardess took me seriously. "I'd like to oblige sir, but they'd smell up the whole cabin, wouldn't they?"

Taryn's muffled voice came through the blanket. "Don't listen to him, please. He never means anything he says."

We had a wonderful time in London visiting the late Princess Di's digs at Kensington Palace, gorging on prime rib at Churchill's-On-The-Strand, seeing "Mikado" where it was first performed at the Savoy Theatre, and thrilling to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The highlight of the trip was flying back in Club World without a shred of guilt. We felt comfortable, even entitled, to be first off the plane and first to claim our luggage.

On the ride home we realized that we would never travel like royalty again.

Taryn, with the wisdom grandkids are born with, suggested that Sam's gift was a nice thought but not much of a present. Flying Coach Class would seem much worse than it did before.

Later, I thanked Sam, trying to keep a stiff upper lip. "The only thing I missed was inflight kippers."

He informed me that if I had ordered them 24 hours in advance, BA would have pre-cooked them.

Maybe on my 90th.