We’re seated one row behind the bulkhead that separates our plucky steerage section from First Class, along with a gray mesh curtain that vexes my populist rage with its flimsiness. Fat businessmen with their fleshy heads encased in wireless Bose brand headphones and gelled Eurotrash with weak chins move like ghosts behind the veil, and if there had been a collective vote at the beginning of the flight to staple a polyester airplane blanket over the passageway I’m ninety percent sure it would have passed.

And it gets even better from there.