It's Ninjas All The Way Down

Meta: This is the first in a series of backdated entries about the trip to London.

My sweetie and I are currently en route to London. Arrival time: 3.5 hours. By then it will be early morning, and I'll be cheated out of a night's sleep due to time-shifting. Then again, I'll get it back on a virtual two-hour flight home. It's about as close to borrowing time as one can really get.

So... me and my sweetie get to the airport, and we get to wait in the "elite" check-in line, due to the fact that I fly too much, and because I took advantage of a lot of offers immediately following 9/11. Ergo, we walked right up to the counter and checked in, as opposed to waiting for an hour in the regular check-in line. That was ninja.

Then we went quickly through the "elite" line to get to the security scanners, avoiding a thirty minute wait. That was ninja.

Then we got to go to into the airline's "club room" to wait for the flight. Comfy seats, free drinks, reasonably quiet, and a voice over the intercom telling you when to leave the lounge to get to your boarding gate at exactly the right time. That was really ninja.

Then, for boarding, the first class passengers were called first, followed by the Very Frequent Fliers, such as myself, thus giving extra time to put one's carry-ons in the bins. Also, reasonably ninja.

The tricky part about this is that I'm feeling all ninja and stuff because I'm not being treated like cattle. Rather, I'm just being treated like a human being. As soon as you step into an airport, your expectations are lowered, and simple courtesies, along with even the slightest extra services beyond sheer utilitarianism make you feel all ninja.

It's ninjas all the way down, until you stand on the ground and look up.

Date: 4 March 2002
Altitude: 35,000 feet.