Karma sucks!

  I was sitting next to two bleached-blond women in their thirties wearing matching 1.5 karat diamond earrings while I ate a pack of miniature Prince biscuits that I seem to only be able to find at a small snack cart by the United terminal in Charles de Gaulle airport. The women flip through a People magazine pointing out whom they know, whom they don’t know, whom they like and whose date is overweight. I crunch my cookies louder, hoping to drown out the society accents. It was a stroke of fate when I choked on my second biscuit, causing me to halt my careless chewing routine–otherwise I never would have heard my name over the loudspeaker. Could it be? Angels, calling my name from puffy white clouds in United’s friendly skies. “Madame Guenther, please approach the podium.” Followed by, “Madame Guenther, we’re upgrading you to business class.” The shiny silver card came by post. At first I didn’t know what it was. I mean, I didn‘t even apply, but when I found out that I had been admitted well, I cried. Tears of joy. Running down my cheek onto the silver card. Tears for never having to bear the screams of a two-year-old for 13 hours straight, while trying to uncross my legs without shattering my kneecap on the tray table. Tears for a better diet and no more waiting in long lines, hoping they’d call my section next. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have achieved Premier Status with United Airlines. Applause, please. The thirteen-hour flight from CDG to SFO was like a mini-vacation. I read a book and stretched out my legs. Ate smoked salmon and filet mignon with real silverware (except for the plastic knife, but it was the color silver) and cloth napkins. Even placemats. Apéritifs with drinks before dinner. Soufflé and Bailey’s after dinner. And when I excused myself to wash up in the restroom, I didn’t have to climb over anyone, I just stood up and walked past the gentlemen in the business suit seated next to me. The seats in Business Class are electrically powered! I spent a full hour between movies fiddling with the different buttons–causing the footrest to move up and down. Once bored with the control panel I reached into the pouch on the back of the seat in front of me (for which I had to unbuckle my seat belt just to touch, I had so much leg room) and took out my goodie bag. Rembrandt toothpaste (the expensive kind), cute clear baby toothbrush, Scope, socks and sleep mask. I pull the sleep mask over my eyes, forgetting my usual fear in coach, that the person next to me might cut off my hair or stick things in my mouth while I‘m asleep. I push the recline button on my chair’s control panel and fall back peacefully. I’m so grateful for every time I helped an old woman down the stairs or filled up someone’s expired parking meter–God, Karma’s fantastic! … I think it just might be possible that during my last life I did something really terrible. It turns out that with Karma, what goes around comes around, but not until your next life. This means we pay today, not for what we did yesterday, but for what we did maybe a hundred years ago. It turns out, Karma has a long memory. So, when I fill up those parking meters, I’m not insuring this life, but my next one. When I was little, whenever I was doing something that I shouldn’t, like trying to melt the portable phone into its cradle with a lighter, my mom used to say to me, “Careful, Kirsten! You don’t want to come back as an ant.” Now I get what she was talking about. Perhaps this is the reason United refused to upgrade me on my return flight to Paris. This, Karma. United teased me! They gave me a taste of smoked salmon salad with a real fork, and now they want me to pay $200 to sit in a seat that was free last week. According to my travel agent mother, this is an amazing deal, only offered to premier-status flyers. But $200! That would pay for the little Marc Jacobs turquoise clutch I was eyeing in Saks. And beside, I have $128.64 in my Bank of America account. My head hurts just thinking about coach. I tell the short man with the spiked hair and braces behind the United check-in counter that I’m pregnant–but he says that I still have to pay $200 for the upgrade. They’re putting me in Economy Plus. Whatever. At least I’m sitting in a side row, with only two seats, and I have a window, so I can lean my head to the side without worrying that I might fall onto a stranger’s shoulder. This is an advantage to having a travel agent for a mother, better seats and special meals. My mom didn’t order me a special meal this time, because I truly believed that I would be bumped up to business class. But, I’ve already decided that I’m not going to eat on the flight anyway, because I read in InStyle magazine Laura Linney’s cure for jetlag: eat right before you get on the plane and then only drink water while in flight. Well, at least I won’t be tempted by a big juicy steak. God, I’m hungry. I wait until the absolute last second to board the flight–I realize this goes against the benefits of having premier status, but I keep thinking the voices from the sky might call my name. They don‘t. My seat is actually pretty good—and Economy Plus does appear to have more leg room than coach. I take out my book, The Mailroom: The History of Hollywood From the Bottom Up. I start to doze off… “Put the book down. Go to sleep. You must rest.” Whoa there! Who is the Crazy Man touching me. Why is he petting my face? The man with the silver hair in the matching denim coos at me in a thick Persian accent. Now I’m wide awake. I really hate that this is the first time in my life I’ve been able to sleep on an airplane (thanks to Laura Linney’s advice) and now Crazy is petting my face. I…