Because I travel a lot for work, I've got preferred status on a bunch of different airlines, which means I often get bumped up to first class. Which is great for me — first class is really nice, with the legroom and free food and the flight attendants are nicer too.

But on principle, the whole experience always ends up pissing me off. It's ridiculous that a nice, humane air travel experience is limited to people who can pay a zillion dollars for a ticket. And it's just one more way that rich people get to isolate themselves from anyone who isn't exactly like them. God forbid, Mr. 2C, that you should have to sit next to one of the poors...Christ.

Even if you're traveling for business, that ticks me off too, because it means your company thinks you're so freaking special, they should shell out for you to avoid coach. That's just a waste of company money — money that could be reinvested, or returned to shareholders, or used to cut prices, or give raises. Any number of things would be preferable to you getting a freshly baked cookie at 30,000 feet.

I know, I shouldn't be so mad: it's my free-spending travel companions who subsidize the $300 coast-to-coast round trip tickets that let me visit friends and family. But I can't help it. Enabled by the airlines' dual class structure, you represent everything that's wrong with America, and I'd prefer not to sit next to you when you put on your noise-canceling headphones and open up your leather-bound legal pad. I'm not giving up my upgrades — I work for a low-budget non-profit and travel half the time, so if it can be a marginally more pleasant experience, that's one of the perks. But if you see me on your next flight, know this: when I'm closing my eyes during take-off and landing, it's not because I'm scared. It's because I'm taking that time to hope you, my fat cat, first-class neighbor, get dysentery.

Go ahead, get it off your chest. Send your unsigned money-related secrets to confessions@bundle.com or submit via our Tumblr, where you can use a fake name and email — we'll never know.


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