“Would you like to purchase any snacks or sandwiches today?” the stewardess asks. Â (Erm… air hostess… no wait… flight attendant. Â Right, we’re using the neutered flight attendant now. Â Silliness. Â Anyway, this was a lady, but that’s irrelevant.)
Starting again…
“Would you like to purchase any snacks or sandwiches today?” the flight attendant asks.
My stomach rumbles ominously. Â I haven’t had anything today but a Jimmy Dean D-Lights diet breakfast sandwich and a banana.
“Yeah, I’ll have the sandwich.”
She passes over a pathetic, plastic-wrapped sandwich and a small bag of chips.
“That’ll be ten dollars.”
I resist a sudden urge to hand the sandwich and small bag of chips right back. Â But I don’t. Â My stomach has told me in no uncertain terms that doing that would be a bad idea. Â Picking a fight with a large, bald, tattooed man in a bar bad. Â So I pass over my credit card, resisting the urge to grind my teeth.
I look over the meager fare with disgust as the attendant fiddles with her little card reading machine. Â You’d think the airline could spot me a dang sandwich for a four and a half hour flight.
“Thank you!”
I mumble something that could be interpreted as polite as I return my abused card to the dubious safety of my wallet.
The attendant moves on to the next row, doing a valiant job of pretending to ignoring her memories of the days when passengers looked forward to flying. Â When a flight came with a meal, a smile, a pillow, and even — if you asked for them — a deck of cards. Â When the only people that carried roller-bags onto the plane were on business, and the only reason they didn’t check bags was because they were far too busy to bother with waiting at the baggage claim. Â When flying wasn’t a chore, but an adventure.
I don’t envy her. Â Hers is a hateful job now.
I turn back to stare at my sandwich and small bag of chips. Â But I don’t eat yet. Â The drink cart spends another fifteen minutes making its slow trudge down the isle before it reaches us.
Service — at least that at thirty thousand feet — is dead in America.