I Don't Like the Lux, but the Lux Likes Me
Big Encounter with Luxury
(Due to popular demand, I’m moving this letter up in the ranks to share a little about my recent travel to Riyadh. Here’s a favorite moment.)
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I recently discovered something wild: money. More specifically, I recently discovered luxury. I was asked to join a project abroad with a learning academy of a consulting firm in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We flew business class. This is my first encounter with the lux.
I bear my witness now.
Meet Me at the Lux
Receiving my boarding pass, I notice I am cordially invited to a thing called “the lounge”. Myself having experienced a number of lounges before am not very excited by this, though curious. Thinking there will only be nice chairs in this lounge, I decide to visit a Dunkin’ stand just outside the lounge before going in. I buy a breakfast sandwich, a cappuccino, and a water.
The non-transparent sliding doors open, and I enter to see the lounge has a front desk attendant. I flounder around with my ticket, food, and bag to show him proof of my cordial invite to “the lounge”. He informs me that he will let me know when my flight will depart. I turn and am taken aback.
Not only are there nice chairs, there is also food - and it’s free. I watch people stroll up and take a plate, load it with eggs or bacon or muffins, and then sit down in a futuristic chair.
I sit down towards the end of the lounge. My Dunkin’ bag is suddenly extremely loud. I feel embarrassed for my simple brand food. It is a dead give-away that I do not know what I am doing and have never been in a true lounge before.
I eat my sandwich, observing the room. People leave their bags unattended at their seats as they go to get more food or take a call by the window. “The lounge” offers many juices and champagne-like glass flutes for all of them. Everyone is (inadvertently) “cheers-ing” to the lux.
I finish my loud sandwich and fold up the wrapper, eyes darting for the newest trash can. I find no such thing. I keep my loud bag close until someone else has their own breaking point:
“Excuse me,” to a lounge staff, “where is the trash?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Where is there a trash? Just a regular trash-”
“Oh, no. I’ll take it for you.” The lounge staff places the trash on the cart of dishes he is collecting from everyone.
I am dumbfounded. No trash at all. In the lux, there is no trash. The lux does not let one be bothered by such a sad thing. Trash is a waste of time, a misdirection of one’s valuable time that the lux simply cannot allow. The same staff member comes by shortly after and removes the crumbly embarrassment of my sandwich bag with a smile. I am now, ostensibly, a part of the lux.
I take my turn at the flutes of juice and muffins, leaving my bag unattended, and sit back down. I snack and read until the front desk calls my flight. I am partially relieved to be away from the lux, but it does not end.
Approaching the Emirates gate, I am invited to a thing called “priority” where I am allowed to board the plane before most everyone else. A special ramp guides us away from the others and to the “top” of the aircraft. Just through the door of the plane, I am shown my seat, and there it is again: the lux, stronger than before. I am not sure what to do next, so I take a video of the chair. Here are some frames from the video:
I take my seat and put my bag in the oddly large cubby in front of my feet. The cubicle of the seat blocks me from the rest of the plane. I am not aware of anything else happening around me. I can not see much without actually standing to observe my surroundings. The lux cuts me off from the others on the plane. Only people deliberately visiting me or passing by me are in my world. The lux, though, is no match for the child across the aisle who was laughing at Dora the Explorer and shouting out the answers. A simple turn of the head allows me to see that he is maneuvering the lux with his feet and toes.
What Happened Next
A very excited and well dressed man with a tray of towels comes by asking if I would like one. I say yes, and he uses a pair of tongs to place this small, rolled-up towel on a shallow dish next to me. He smiles as if to say, “my pleasure” then speeds along.
What is this towel for, and why does it smell like lemon? I unroll it with all of my fingers, fold it around a little, and quickly dab my face. It is refreshing. That is true, but I also have no idea if that is the intended use for it. I don’t want to be seen misusing the lux.
Shortly after, a stewardess stops by to ask if I have reviewed the menu. I, luckily, did, but it wasn’t clear if these things would cost more, so I did not seriously consider them. She asks this question, and I start to boil with anxiety. Do I ask about extra costs? I do not. Instead, I fumble:
“Yes, I would like the…(gazes at menu)... the lobster with saffron rice, please.”
“And would you like an appetizer?”
“Oh, yes… I’ll have the… (glances down again)...the mediterranean platter, please.”
“Of course. And for dessert?”
“Yes, the…(glances) honey cheesecake?”
Smiling, “and what would you like to drink?”
At this point, I am simply beyond my frame of reference. I’m familiar with someone bringing me a foil tray of something warmed up with a random, also pre-packaged cookie. But where is this restaurant?
Baffled by her question, I slowly turn and point to the 5 drinks already at my seat and mumble, “maybe I’ll have one of these?”
“No, for lunch.”
“Oh, oh, of course… I’ll have a ginger ale?”
“Wonderful. We will bring these out a little later into the flight.”
“Thank you.”
I discover the automatic, double layered window screen at my seat. I tap once and a thin curtain rolls down automatically then a full blackout screen. I notice the seat is capable of deep reclining, and it occurs to me that my bag is not in the bag space but where my feet should go if I flip this thing into bed mode. There is a smaller space below this large cubby, and I stuff my bag there, though that is probably for my feed in the half-posed “chill mode”.
I’m exploring the “chill mode” (feet surely misplaced) when the same stewardess returns with something like a blanket in a sealed bag. She is poised to start pulling open the bag and asks, “shall I prepare your bed now?”
“Sure, ok.”
“...”
“...”
We are staring at each other. I start boiling again, but this time I know there is just no way through it. I am not sure, but I thought that meant she was going to place the blanket over me, as if tucking me in. Who am I to reject this extension of the lux? But she isn’t moving. I am wrong.
Finally, I ask: “what happens next?”
She laughs a little, “I place this on your seat.”
“Oh!” I’m laughing now. “Just here?” And I am leaning forward from “chill mode” pointing beyond my stupid, hunched back to the chair and looking to her for confirmation.
“Yes, exactly,” laughing.
I thought she was going to just place this blanket behind my back now, so I stay leaning forward. But nothing happened next.
“You have to-”
“-get out of the chair, right- “I’m sorry, I’ve never flown like this before.”
I stumble out of the lux and into the aisleway. She places this blanket on the seat, and I thank her as she walks away also laughing. It isn’t a blanket, it is a mattress. This already very soft seat now has a nice mini-mattress over it.
After a while, I made my way back to the plane for the restroom to discover there was a bar on the plane. It is odd to see that but not as odd to see the cologne in the restroom. Why is it there, and why did I try some on?
I walk back to my seat in style in time for lunch then read and slept the rest of the flight.
Afterward
What is the lux? What does it want?
The lux begins at assuming that my time is too fine of a thing to be bothered with small issues. Normal tasks are reduced to value equations. Trash is an exhausted value, thus I should have nothing to do with it. Lunch is a value add, but it would normally risk my valuable time if unmanaged thus it is managed at the outset for minimal disruption. Thirst is a waste of time. It is necessary to provide a total abundance of beverages, 5 in fact, such that I need not waste my time in need for something. It is the same with the comfortable chair and the mattress. The lux appears to be obvious for providing these needs. It is an extra abundance of options such that I would not waste my time in want.
I arrived to this trip totally prepared to mildly suffer in an odd chair next to people I will probably never see again. Instead I was ushered to a gap in time where issues were minimized, if not removed, and delivered by someone else’s pleasure-to-serve. I am afforded more of my own space and pace-of-time in the lux. It is a smoothing out of things.
While it is that, it is also a (hilarious) displacing. I am totally foreign to this experience and this degree of accommodation. Was it odd? Yes. Would I do it again?
Yes.
More soon,
Trevor
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