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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
The night flight to Paris leaves J.F.K. at 7 P.M. and arrives at de Gaulle the next day at about 8:45 A.M. French time. Between takeoff and landing, there's a brief parody of an evening: dinner is served, the trays are cleared, and four hours later it's time for breakfast. The idea is to trick the body into believing it has passed a night like any other--that your unsatisfying little nap was actually sleep and now you are rested and deserving of an omelette.
Hoping to make the lie more convincing, many passengers prepare for bed. I'll watch them line up outside the bathroom, some holding toothbrushes, some dressed in slippers or loose-fitting pajama-type outfits. Their slow-footed padding gives the cabin the feel of a hospital ward: the dark aisles, corridors; the flight attendants, nurses. The hospital feeling grows even stronger once you leave coach. Up front, where the seats recline almost flat, like beds, the doted-on passengers lie under their blankets and moan. I've heard, in fact, that the airline staff often refers to the business-class section as "the I.C.U.," because the people there demand such constant attention. They want what their superiors are getting in first class, so they complain incessantly, hoping to get bumped up.
There are only two classes on the airline I normally take between France and the United States--coach and something they call Business Elite. The first time I sat there, I was flown to America and back for a book tour. "Really," I kept insisting, "there's no need." I found the whole "first-to-board" business a little embarrassing, but then they brought me a bowl of hot nuts and I began to soften. Pampering takes some getting used to. A flight attendant addresses me as "Mr. Sedaris," and I feel sorry that she's forced to memorize my name rather than, say, her granddaughter's cell-phone number. On this particular airline, though, they do it in such a way that it seems perfectly natural, or at least it does after a time.
"May I bring you a drink to go with those warm nuts, Mr. Sedaris?" the woman looking after me asked--this as the people in coach were still boarding. The looks they gave me as they passed were the looks I give when the door of a limousine opens. You always expect to see a movie star, or, at the very least, someone better dressed than you, but time and time again it's just a sloppy nobody. Thus the look, which translates to "Fuck you, Sloppy Nobody, for making me turn my head."
On all my subsequent flights, the...
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