Firsthand Lessons While Flying First Class

It is, I suppose, a fact of motherhood. You pine for the luxury of solitude, then let guilt block your enjoyment when it comes.

So there I was last weekend, flying first class for the only time in my life. And all I could do was fidget in my plush, leather seat and worry about how my children were faring a few rows back, alone in the crowded confines of the budget seats.

We’d been split up on an overbooked flight back from Ohio. My daughters were scattered among three seats in coach, and I had been upgraded to a first-class seat. At first, I could hardly believe my good fortune. Four hours with no kids to nag me, room to stretch out, a chance to live a fantasy.

“What’s it like up there?,” my girls and I used to always wonder, as we watched the flight attendant pull the magic curtain that separated our crowded airplane digs from the mysterious seats up front.

Now I know . . . more comfortable seats, fancier dishes, no long line for the lavatory. But it is not worth pining for, when the alternative is sound sleep or good company.

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I know many of you may be accustomed to the perks of first-class travel--hot towels before dining, free movie headsets, extra pillows and all the booze you can drink.

But I’ve always been among those struggling down the aisle past you, hauling balky children and bulky luggage, loaded down with juice boxes and books and video games, trying not to step on your Fendi shoes or bump you as you stow your Louis Vuitton luggage.

Now I felt like an interloper, as I slipped back and forth through the curtained boundary, parceling out provisions among my children, then settling into seat 1B, at the very front of the plane.

It took awhile for me to accept the trappings of my new status. I burned myself on the little cup of nuts the flight attendant laid on my tray, unaccustomed to airplane almonds served fresh from the microwave. I passed on an offer of wine--”red or white?”--until I realized that drinks were free. By the time I finished my second glass, I was feeling bold enough to summon the flight attendant back for drink number three.

There are upsides, to be sure. The hot towels, the leg room, the ice cream sundaes, the fact that first class means first out the door when the plane touches down.

But the food--dry chicken over gummy rice--was your typical airline fare, never mind that it was served in a china dish, accompanied by tiny crystal salt-and-pepper shakers. And the ambience? Behind me a man was snoring so loudly, each breath he took seemed to vibrate in my brain. And across the aisle, a rambunctious 3-year-old kept up an endless stream of chatter in a voice that, by hour two, sounded like nails on a chalkboard. A first-class nuisance.

His dad tried shushing him half-heartedly--”Not now, Dylan. Daddy is trying to read a very important magazine.” His mom had taken full advantage of the free-drink deal and fallen blissfully asleep.

But every time I closed my eyes, his entreaties--”Mom, look at this. Mom, what’s this?”--roused me and sent me scurrying back through the curtain to coach, worried that my own kids might just be needing me.

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I shouldn’t have worried. My teenager was wedged into a window seat, eyes closed, headphones on, trying to blot out the amorous gymnastics of the newlywed couple seated beside her. A few rows back, her little sister slept like a pint-sized mummy--curled up in her seat, draped head to toe in a blanket--oblivious to the cries of the infant a seat away.

And my restless middle child--the one who cannot go 10 minutes without asking “Are we almost there?”--was seated next to an elderly woman who scarcely glanced at me each time I lumbered back to check on my daughter, to offer her cookies or lip gloss or magazines.

Still, I noticed the smile that creased her lips when my daughter finally waved me away. “I’m fine, Mommy, really. You can go back to your seat.”

And when we assembled later to claim our luggage, my daughter was full of news about her seatmate. “She’s a middle child, like me. She’s a nurse and she lives near us and we talked about the books we were reading. She offered to pay for headphones for me, but I told her, ‘No, thank you,’ because I didn’t really need them.”

She’d made a friend, it seemed, while I was too busy worrying about her to enjoy the gifts first class might have offered me.

As we headed out with our bags, her seatmate sidled up to me. “We had a nice time,” she assured me. “I told her you were living it up in the fancy seats . . . wearing silk slippers, drinking brandy.”

And I smiled and couldn’t help but wonder, who had had the better trip, my daughter or me?

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Sandy Banks’ column runs on Sundays and Tuesdays. Her e-mail address is sandy.banks@latimes.com.