A trippy trip to the Watergate Hotel
Like most Americans, I like to believe I judge people as individuals rather than by their class status. Last week that belief shattered thanks to a oneday gig in Washington at the Watergate Hotel that I managed to milk for five days.
I am the son of blue-collar parents and immigrant grandparents, none of whom ever saw the inside of a college classroom. I consider myself a man of the people. Still, all my egalitarian idealism evaporated when I looked at my boarding pass and saw, “Group 1, Seat 1-A.”
It goes without saying I wasn’t picking up the tab.
“Would you like me to hang your garment?” asked the flight attendant to my great surprise. Mostly, because I didn’t know I owned a garment. “You mean this?” I asked, holding up the 30-year-old winter coat I rarely have a reason to wear.
Todd, the professionally courteous steward, squinted. Just a tiny dip of his eyelids as he correctly identified me as a lifelong coach customer who had somehow landed in the high cotton.
I tried to play it cool while sipping ice water from real glass etched with the airline logo. But I nibbled hummus and sourdough flatbreads a little too flamboyantly as the steerage passengers “excuse me, pardon me’d” by with their bundles and burdens to the aviation ghetto of rows 34, 35 and 36. My
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letters@dailybreeze.com (Please do not include any attachments) old neighborhood. I sideeyed each of them to see if they noticed the splendor to which I had instantly grown accustomed.
Instead of envy, I received the sting of judgment as my social inferiors gave me a look that screamed, “How did THAT guy score 1-A?”
Luckily, the swoosh of the first-class curtain, the 38th Parallel of air travel, spared me more of their judgmental looks until we reached D.C. But it wasn’t just the riff-raff who were onto me. My fellow elites also judged me harshly, concluding I did not belong in their club.
My nonstop dinging of the flight attendant call button for more of this or extra that outed me as a pretender. The others accepted their royal treatment as a birthright.
Meanwhile, I fidgeted with every button and amenity, afraid I’d miss out on something while asking too many questions about what exactly I was entitled to.
To be honest, flying first class turned out to be more stressful than I imagined.
And it got worse at the Watergate.
Yes, that Watergate. 1972. Woodward and Bernstein. “I am not a crook.” Resignation.
2022’s version of the hotel is ultra-hip with amoeba-shaped furniture as confusing as it is uncomfortable.
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I couldn’t figure out how anything worked, not even the elevator. I pestered the front desk with endless questions revealing myself as not only a fraudulent high-roller, but an old coot to boot.
Chicken wings go for $31. A bottle of Belvedere vodka listed for $450! Yet people sat in the lobby bar laughing and carrying on while swilling $50 cocktails as I slunk out to a CVS for a six pack of Diet Coke.
Of course, this was only Day One.
By Day Five I breezed in and out of the Watergate as if I were Deep Throat, giving a condescending nod to the doormen and various lobby dwellers I deigned to acknowledge. Hey, it’s not like I made them avert their eyes. Like I said, “man of the people.” By the time I Uber XL’d to Reagan-National for the return trip to L.A., I had embraced the imperial aura of a senior senator from a state that matters, or maybe even actual royalty.
Unfortunately, we landed safely and my coach turned back into a pumpkin. Coach being the operative word. That’s where I will be from now on.
Now, if you’ll excuse me. Yesterday was trash day on my block and those cans won’t bring themselves back from the curb.
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