Maximum Mileage

I've never actually seen much of Phoenix Arizona aside from the airport and the interiors of the vans which shuttled us to our meetings and hotels, but this time there wasn't even a meeting. There was a slightly rumpled hotel voucher in one of my hands, and every few minutes I would look down to make sure I had not misplaced now-useless the winter coat I had carried from New England.

Three of us sat in the van: a business man in his mid-fourties, a girl who was probably in early college and me: all bumped from the same US Airways flight and all being put up for the evening. The man and I had a full hotel voucher, but the girl had only been given a partial one.

"How did you do it?" She asked us.

"You need to learn to negotiate," he said, a little frustrated, "We're here because it's a slowdown. I got it in writing from them. There is great power in that."

Talk sparked briefly but rapidly petered out into an awkward and exhausted silence.

"You guys at least got your meal vouchers didn't you?"

"They didn't give..." I started.

"You are never given them. You walk up and ask, politely but firmly, where your meal vouchers are. Never if they are available, just act like you're politely looking for directions on where to pick them up."

"Ah."

"They'll treat you as poorly as they think you'll take, but if you act like you know what you deserve you'll normally get it."

The man next to me on the ride into the airport the next morning looked a little twitchy, and the pin on his shirt said "US Airways." We struck up light conversation, and he asked me what I was doing in Phoenix.

"Oh, I got stranded overnight. They said it was the weather but I hear it is a slowdown."

The twitchy man looked a bit upset, "I'm sure if that was the case I would have heard about it."

I was settling into my seat on the plane when the twitchy man was back, dressed as a crew member and grinning from ear to ear, "I heard you had a rough time coming in here," he said and handed me a pile of snacks. A few minutes later he was coming down the isle handing out sodas and selling drinks.

"And for you," the smile he set on me was so wide it my face hurt out of sympathy to look at it, "can I get you a drink for your troubles? On the house of course..."

"Uh no, I have to go to work after this, thank you..."

"A coffee then?"

"That's not necessary..."

"And how do you take your coffee?"

"I don't like coffee, thanks anyway..."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes,"

The man handed me another candy bar and a ginger ale before wandering away. The man in the seat next to me was awestruck.

There was a voice behind me as a face appeared between the seat heads, "Are you famous? Or somebody... or..."

I laughed nervously a little, "Well, everybody is somebody, aren't they?"

I was suddenly aware of many faces craned to see me. Somebody's smartphone camera shutter clicked.

Ginger ale never tasted so good. As I got off the plane people stepped out of my way to let me through.

I suppose the man in the van was right.