It's That Time...

When Josh and I first started dating I, every early on, made the proclamation that, one day, I was going to be unburdened of my Air NZ special status and that, having tasted life on the "other side", flying life after that was going to be very unpleasant for both of us. At least until it all seemed like a nice faraway dream.

Well my friends, that time will shortly come. My job no longer requires the frequent hugging of airport tarmacs that it once did, and so, at the end of September Air New Zealand will cease to forget my name, and I will be returned to the world of the traveling masses. Queues, hard plastic chairs, paying for food and seat 76K all await me.

I am not taking it well.

In fact, I hate to admit it, that while people with any kind of compassion at all are praying for the end to wars, starvation, floods and any of a million other plights currently facing humanity, I have caught myself uttering prayers that come 30 September Air NZ suffer some kind of technical glitch and renews my specialness.

I have even worked out exactly what my shortfall was and calculated and how many flights it would take to make it up, and checked to see how much it would cost to do on the spare weekends between now and then. To those of you in the US this sounds completely insane. But here in NZ where security actually let you keep you clothes on, I figured that Josh could drop me off one Saturday morning, and if I managed my timings right I could squeeze in three Wellington-Auckland return trips in a day. Drop back on Sunday after church for a couple of Wellington-Christchurch trips and we'd be good to go.

For the record it would have cost over a grand which even I, in all my princess panic, have accepted is completely insane. Imagine that conversation... Honey, why is there $1200 on our Visa for Air NZ?... oh no reason really, um would you mind dropping me off at the airport 6am Saturday?.. Where are you going?... Nowhere, well to Auckland, but not really, I'll just be walking the path from the gate to the lounge and back a few times.

I know, I know. Returning to seat 72K is going to be really good for me.