No, You're Not The Asshole For Enjoying An Airport Lounge While Your Friends Wait At The Gate
jacoblund. Getty Images.A post regarding airport lounges on the Reddit "Am I The Asshole?" sub went pretty big this weekend:
I'm traveling with five friends now and we are travelling cheap. However we had one long layover in an airport with a great VIP lounge.
The thing about these lounges is that they have free food and liquor. And comfortable chairs and shower facilities.
I told my friends what I was about and they all said that they didn't want to waste money.
So I went to the lounge by myself. I had some snacks. A few drinks. A quick nap. A long hot shower. And then I caught up with my friends at the gate.
My phone was fully charged, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. And a little drunk. When we started talking they were bitching about the cost of everything at the airport.
They send why I looked so pleased with myself. I told them about my stay in the lounge.
Two of them got visibly angry. They said I was an asshole for not telling everything their was in the lounge. They had actually spent more on food and drinks than I had. Plus I got to nap in a comfy chair and have a shower.
I said that lounges aren't a secret and that the internet exists. They could have looked up the same information I did.
Let's start by saying this sounds completely made up. From the friends' petulant response to the cycle this lady hit for in an airport lounge, this post has all the trappings of an internet trap.
BUT!
For the sake of the blog quota, let's pretend this really did happen. Is the girl who went into the airport lounge the asshole?
Airport lounges are sanctuaries, but they are not exactly the exclusive enclaves reserved for wealthy, discerning voyagers they once were. With a major push from credit card companies partnering with airlines, many airport lounges have become crowded and pedestrian. You might expect me to bemoan this more accessible change, but I actually love it. My whole life I used to walk past those lounges and wonder what wonders they held. Then one day, I just… signed up for a new credit card and presto! I had access.
Pretty simple. And thank God. I now legitimately leave earlier for the airport in order to spend more time in the lounges. I'm a big Delta guy and veering off the long corridor of travelers into a Delta Lounge, passing through those sliding doors, and riding an escalator up to a smiling greeter has come to feel like the foreplay of flying. I eat a full meal from the SOLID buffet and at this point, my annual credit card fee has more than paid for itself in the plates upon plates of chicken saltimbocca and white rice and those God-given peanut butter and jelly bars they lovingly lay out.
Which brings us back to this Reddit post. This sounds more like one of those international first class/business class lounges, what with the showers and the long layover. I don't know if there is a credit card that can get you access to, say, the Singapore lounge, or the Etihad lounge. I think you have to be a pretty elite flyer to get into those places at Heathrow or Doha or wherever you're connecting to traverse the globe.
This young lady dared to be great and told her friends what she was about. They said no way, too expensive, we'll keep our $50 (?) entrance fee, thank you bitch. Of course, our heroine went off to the land of milk and honey and had herself a TIME. Drinking, showering, snacking, napping… by the time she returned to the hustle and bustle and met up with her friends, they had aged 10 years and she was a brand new woman!
That's when the trouble started. "Two of them got visibly angry." Because she didn't tell them what the lounge had to offer? Like she's a damn spokesperson for the airport lounge? The plot thickens a bit when she says "they could have looked up the same information I did." So she DID look up the info, and she DIDN'T tell them what they had inside. I love her. THAT is petty. That's deliciously petty. She saw showers, food, booze, and nappy chairs and thought… mine, only mine.
And still, I'm with her. If by now you're not familiar with the wonders of airport lounges, you probably don't deserve to feel their warmth. If I'm flying internationally and I have a five-hour layover (or greater), and an airport lounge arises from the desert for the price of $50? $100? I can't imagine what the cost would have to be for me to say no.
Especially if I knew I could rub it in the cheap, sweaty, bedraggled, forlorn faces of my cheap friends after.