San Francisco International Airport
5:22am

I got to the airport at 3:45am for my 6:30 flight. There were 4-5 families ahead of me, all Hispanic. The ticket counter didn’t open until 4:15, so I stood in line for a while, watching the kids run around. One very little one kept pushing a toy car across the floor. He would give the car a push, then spend about a minute just watching it where it stopped. Perhaps he was hoping someone would come along and trip on it.

The folks in line with me all had luggage carts, loaded up with the largest suitcases I’ve ever seen. Each of these could have held all of my luggage, and each family had 5 or 6 of them. Their luggage carts looked like the armored and patched-together vehicles from one of the ‘road warrior’ movies. I stood surrounded by these, feeling very intimidated.

When I got to the counter I asked how much it would cost to upgrade to business class. The woman told me that I should have called 24 hours in advance. Oh well.

“Well, if I had called, how much would it cost?”

“Ciento. One hundred dollars.” She looked apologetic. “Do you want to upgrade?”

Huh? “Yes I would, very much so.”

So I’m flying to Mexico D.F. business class. Luxury, even the slightly wider seats of business class, is addictive. And the ability to sleep better in the wider seats is worth every penny of $100. I think if I had bought the business-class ticket, it would have cost several thousand dollars more. This is a bargain.

Time to board. Then to sleep.

Ron