Of Upgrades and Downgrades

I hit ‘Print’ on the document just as I dashed off to catch the shuttle to the airport. I planned to pick up the papers from the printer on the way. I am quite organized and planned that way. No extra step is ever walked if it can be avoided. If I really am organized and planned like I just was swanking in the previous couple of lines, then I would not be dashing to the airport, like I am doing right now, you might ask. But that is besides the point and doesn’t really matter in the bigger realm of things. What matters is whether or not I made the bus along with the papers in hand, and that my curious reader, I did!

It is barely 5 o’ clock but it is depressingly and annoyingly dark outside. I settled myself on the cold leather seat of the comfortable office shuttle bus after a cursory ‘hi’ to the tight lipped driver. I felt instantly tired and that is odd considering I barely spent 5 hours at work today. Of course, not including the elaborate 2 hour going-away lunch for a coworker at the slightly upscale Italian restaurant with live-singing and all that jazz. Mention about lunch brings back a niggling feeling of being swindled off of fourteen bucks for a mere salad that I reluctantly ate cursing my homeopathic doctor all the while. Well, if you are to avoid seafood, meat, onions, garlic most primarily, not delving into a list of other insignificant edibles [or in-edibles] one is left with nothing but the starched tablecloth as an option for lunch. So it was quite my lucky day to actually have had a choice of fresh salads.

The Caprese salad, like the name suggested, was a simple affair. Four slices of tomatoes cut into identical and geometrically precise circles, by an experienced hand and a forged knife I would guess, topped with a generous layer of mozzarella cheese, a small branch of basil leaves perched expertly on the cheese, the whole matter floating on a layer of olive oil, gilded with a crisscross pattern of some brown sauce. [And that by the way is everything! Trust me!!]. The whole thing was quite appealing and I would have been quite proud and happy with my pick if I hadn’t really gotten a chance to glance at the other plates on the table. And given that I polished off my plate squeaky clean in a record time of 2 minutes and 46 seconds I did not have anything better to do than stare enviously at the rest of the folks working enthusiastically on their three course meals, quite justifying their fourteen dollars. Going Dutch does have its disadvantages for certain dogs on certain unlucky days.

Let me clarify I am not frugal by the usual standards, for good or for bad. Rarely would you spot me wince at shelling out exorbitant money for ridiculous things. In fact that happens to be my favorite pastime. But the nasty email that gate-crashed into my inbox just before I jauntily set off for lunch really pitched its tent in my mind. The contents of the email were very skillfully delivered in just three lines by my manager, a man (no wonder!) of few and effective words. He did not mince any words to announce the 10% pay-cut starting the first of January. We all knew it was coming but actually having a tangible amount and a date to it had quite a profound affect. A simple message. Happy New Year! And a lighter paycheck to go with it. So there you go, no more grunting and groaning under the weight of it while walking to the bank. They do watch out for their employees or what!! Someone up there surely has a sick sense of humor.

10% less. Now lets see what that would mean. One less shopping trip to the mall per month, no more visits to the spa [even with the enticing free backrubs and all that], fewer of those “I am proud of myself so these bunch of roses and a congratulatory pat on the back” moments, well, the pats can continue though. In other words a simple Gandhian lifestyle. Not too shabby, but think of the irony, I just spent fourteen bucks [for a 7 buck salad no doubt] for someone off to greener pastures to make twice as much as I make now and three times as much as I will make a month from now. Ok folks, now don’t make a dash to your calculators to figure out my salary, because for one my Math is quite rusty and then secondly I am prone to over-exaggeration. So don’t even try.

The arrival of the shuttle bus at the airport put a welcoming end to the tired train [or plane?] of thought. The only comforting thought for the moment is the eternal hope of getting upgraded to First Class and get a decent free meal for dinner. Cheap thought. But it did set my spirits right for the moment.

The airport is crowded like always. Delayed flights, missed baggage, family reunions, kids screaming, people running around frantically up and down the escalators.. Ah! The usual drill!! It used to fascinate me at one point, but too much of anything is not pleasurable. I darted adeptly around a little kid with a whimsical looking toy, a purple poodle I suppose, as I hastened to the Easy Check-In machines. The fact that I never really found them any easy is a side-note and I blame it entirely on my big and complicated first and last names and the way they are spelt [and mis-spelt] in various systems. Even the CSR agents at the counter fail to help me, well, they try to pronounce it and that’s not a good start.

A quick glance at the boarding pass for the departure gate tells me I don’t have to worry about the workout I missed out on for the last one week. I check my watch. Quite a race against time. A rich aroma of grounded coffee however makes me break my step. No, I don’t drink coffee, but my trained brain knows that there is a Eli’s cheesecake on-the-go kiosk right next to the Starbucks counter. I deftly pick up my favorite “Triple Chocolate Truffle” and pay the amazed woman behind the counter with the exact change. [And you did not believe me when I said I am organized.] If Eli’s teamed up with the airlines and gave me miles for every pound of cheesecake I ate I could make a free trip to the moon and back. With an upgrade to First Class.

Twenty minutes later I am contentedly seated in 1B with a nice view of the cockpit, the handsome pilot and his first officer [until the flight takes off that is]. I smile viciously as the people behind struggle to fit their baggage into the already full overhead cabins. The plane saunters slowly onto the runway and as it picks up speed towards the end of the runway I can sense the rush of adrenaline inside me, as always. But today it is for a different reason. I know that as soon as the flight is airborne they serve beverages and meals. And they are all free of cost. I pulled out the print out from my messenger bag. I know that the story is incomplete but yet the excitement was nonetheless there. The heading read “Fly on the Wall - By [our very own] Sisyphus”. From the corner of my eye I could watch the flight attendant heating the porcelain plates deftly. I turned the pages slowly as the words played a soothing affect on my mind. The humming of the airplane, the deafening noise, the pressure on the ears, the soft and reclining seat… slowly as I started drifting off into sleep the last image that lingered on my mind was the flight attendant walking towards me, tray in hand.