Special Meal

"A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles."
-Mignon McLaughlin

My Spouse flew to Europe recently and spent a week.
Too late, it dawned on him that something had been curious about the meals he had been served to and from his destinations.
Some time ago he had opted to say 'diabetic' on his preferred meal plan for flights; that way he avoided the excess of sugar found in usual airline food. Not only that, but he would get served first, the food would have less grease and there would be a little portion of fruit as well. The requirement went into the system and now any time he flies for work-related purposes this benefit happily and automatically presents itself.
This had worked perfectly well for all subsequent flights; except that on his way home from Europe Spouse remembered that the airline attendants had not given him a diabetic meal for any of the numerous parts of that particular trip. It occurred to him just as he boarded a flight in Iceland and prepared for the last leg of a long journey.
He wondered idly about it but determined that it was too late to make a fuss.
When the meal was finally served mid-flight Spouse unwrapped the hot package of food:
there was a long, breaded, golden-fried piece of chicken on a bed of special rice. Other passengers were soon tucking into the same thing. Forget the diabetic meal, thought Spouse in eagerness: this looks surprisingly delicious.
The aroma hit my hungry Spouse and he raised his fork to stab it into the delectable dish.
"Sir?"
Spouse looked upward.
The air stewardess said a name and asked if Spouse was he.
"That's me," he replied.
In her strong and fierce Nordic accent she cautioned with a shake of her head, "you have special meal! You have diabetic meal!"
Spouse glanced down and the food had vanished, snatched away by an Icelandic eagle before he had so much as a moment to blink. At the most inopportune moment of all they had remembered and decided to present Spouse with the diabetic meal.
The superb standard meal was immediately replaced with a similar-sized portion of boiled vegetables and colourless, bland, boiled chicken.
Oh, the joys.