Assaulting United's Red Carpet:

Stupid Elitism makes me see red. That's why the United airport announcer really got my attention in LA when he invited first class and business passengers to “walk the red carpet” onto the plane. There really was a red carpet. It was about three feet long and eighteen inches wide.

You know those short poles they use in airports to create mazes for us to walk through? Each pole has a ribbon you can pull out and attach to another short pole to make a barrier. Well United used those maze poles to make two short alleys to walk up to exactly the same place, where one guy checked all the boarding passes. The alley on the right had the red carpet. A sign announced that the red carpet alley was for first class, business class, fancypants class and something or other else. “Economy” was supposed to go down the left alley.

After calling all the Elites, the announcer cried “seating group one”, and those sheep all went down the left alley. Then he called “seating group two” which included me. Now I was eying that red carpet. I'm going to cross it, I told myself. Why not? And so I did.

As I came up to the boarding fellow, he said, “You're not supposed to walk there!”
“What difference does it make?” I asked.
He checked my boarding pass and said, “You're okay, you're okay, go ahead.” But he pulled out a ribbon and sealed off the path to the red carpet.