Once we had entered the plane we saw that it was not totally packed. It gave us a glimmer of hope that the 3+-hour flight could possibly be made with an empty seat between Jean and me. When we’re flying Southwest, we have a method that usually yields us the empty seat:
• Make no eye contact with those coming down the aisle
• Buy or rent Enquirer, Star, Globe, and Hustler and spread them all over the three seats
• Buy or rent used cups and food paper to spread around with the magazines
• Take shoes off and display sock feet prominently
• Sit as fatly in the seats with as much body spilling all over the place as possible–think “Jabba the Hutt”

But this was TAM, and the seats were assigned. We went ahead and tried the “method” anyway, hoping that any possible row companion would be compelled to find another seat without even attempting actual contact with us.

Either “the method” worked, or there was nobody else assigned to our row, because we had that golden empty seat–a small piece of aeronautical real estate worth more per square inch than the finest Fifth Avenue penthouse.

To top off this small victory, the TAM candy greeting was right behind. This time, we both took two candies. I still didn’t have the nerve to get a handful like I had seen other people do. Being that we were gonna be on the plane with the stewardess for all that time, I didn’t want our first introduction to be greed-based. I was counting on some real TAM service, untainted by a bad first impression. THIS time, I wasn’t going to even THINK of the people up in first class. Uh huh.

The stewardesses were cute as hell, as usual. THIS time, maybe we really WERE gonna experience the TAM luxury they foretold with the candies. Then, as if by magic, our little TVs came on with the flight instructions given in four or five languages. Yippee!! Until Jean’s TV immediately began to strobe and change colors rapidly. It was totally trippy, but useless for watching anything. She turned it off and looked at me. We both burst out laughing.

And don’t think the in-flight entertainment wasn’t top notch. If the trip weren’t long enough for a couple of movie options, they would stick in a videotape (not a CD, a videotape) of either a CBS drama or comedy. The problem was, besides the inherent rotten playback quality of an overused videotape at the get-go, they tended to start a one-hour drama when there wasn’t enough time left in the flight to see the end. That happened several times during our travels. It was as if whoever it was that taped the show had forgotten to set their VCR correctly and the last 10 minutes were missing, so they played it back for the passengers accordingly.

After a little flying time, I was hungry. The coconut water had cured me! Not really. Flying makes me hungry. Like anything does. Suddenly, the big “food and beverage cart parade” showed its head at the back of the plane. Of course. We were almost at the front of the plane.

So here they come, moving like slugs, greeting people left and right in Portuguese, and doling out what, on any menu, should be called “The Oliver Twist.” First of all, you’re sitting there trying not to obviously crane your neck to see what they’re serving. Then you’re trying not to drool all over the Enquirers and Hustlers, but can’t WAIT for that stupid cart to get to your place. By then you’ve figured out the pattern: left aisle; smile; serve meal, ask for drink order; give drink order to drink caboose; serve drinks. Right aisle: lather, rinse, repeat.

And then it gets close to you, and suddenly the pattern changes! They start going three rows at a time on one side, completely bypassing YOU! WHAT???

Did I still have a little taint from Iemanjá on me somewhere? Now, besides just squirming and salivating; I was politely, internally steaming, too. But here was the cart, finally! Two foil-covered packets were handed to us rather unceremoniously, I thought.

“Drink? Uh. Bloody Mary?” asks Jean, doing the traditional raised volume and implied quote marks.
“?” replies the stewardess.
“Tomato juice?” asks Jean, loudly.
“?”
“Liquor?” asks Jean. I lean over and do the “drinky-drinky” motion for the stewardess. She nods and holds up a bottle of wine.
“Diet Coke? Coke Lite?” Jean enunciates, as if she were chewing ice. The stewardess pulls out a can of Jean’s second choice, plops two ice cubes in a tiny plastic cup, and pours it three-quarters full.
“May I have the can?” Jean shouts, masticating and enunciating like a pro. The stewardess is nonplussed as she hands her the can.

Having already decided that unless I wanted a Red Wine Sunrise, there was nothing liquory to be had. Besides, the red wine was already open. Uh. This was a morning flight. When was it opened? Shudder. I ordered club soda and lime AND coffee. Egads, in retrospect, I wonder if the coffee was made with “plane water”. Double shudder!

Never mind! The FOOD was here! Jean and I both reverently furled the foil on our breakfast treasures. “Fresh”-like fruit salad, some bready thing, and then the items that scream “LUXURY”: the butter, packaged as if it were churned by the actual descendants of Dom Pedro II; the cheese, with some logo on it indicating how only the most elite get to eat it; and the “jelly” made from the belly button lint of Venus and “kissed” with a hint of jasmine or equivalent. Yeah, great. But it was in reality, a FREEKING PAT OF BUTTER, smaller than a credit card size piece of cheese, and enough jelly to spread on a communion wafer. I’d rather have a trio of Brand X butter, cheese and jelly with a decent Zippy Mart-sized pack of saltines to go with it. Hell, a small “classy” tin of sardines or fish steaks would also be great with the saltines, too! Except a whole planeful of that would be kind of “fragrant.”

We nevertheless attacked the food. It’s always great to open that stuff, like the little baby butter, especially with my sausage fingers. All that internal packaging does nothing but take up potential food space! Sigh. I was beginning to seethe again, as I envisioned them in First Class, eating Eggs Benedict, drinking Mimosas and laughing at all of us in “economy class” as they watched us on closed circuit High-Def TV.