The Awkward Seatbelt Extension Request

Today, a sumo of a woman rang her flight attendant call button during boarding. Being the super-stew that I am, I rush to be of service.  I come upon her frame and survey the area. I wait for the obvious seatbelt extension request, but she surprises me with her phrasing. She says to me, "My seatbelt is too small." 

Um, yah.

I tell my co-flight attendant about this clever cow and she tells me what she says when asked for the fat belts..."Oh my, did you get the short one today?" which I think would be embarrassingly offensive but she assures me that "It's all in the delivery."

aTypical day?

I just had to share this dooooozie from a co-worker's FB wall post.  The last part especially surprised even me.

  'OMG. In one day we had a medical emergency, a dog having a seizure, and to top it all off a grown man threw up on himself. I asked him if he had a change of clothes in his carry-on. He said No, then changed his mind and said Yes. He proceeded to get down another passengers bag and change into that persons shirt. No lie... WTF.....
     The guy actually took out the other passengers toiletry(cosmetic bag) and left it in the bathroom. We brought it up and said you left this in the bathroom. The other gentlemen said "Hey, that's mine!" Then he got up and said, "Wait! You're wearing my shirt. Did you take that from my bag.?" I thought there was going to be a full blown fight.'

I'm speechless & I'm dying to know how the crew handled it in the end. This is a case where I hope that man was a clinically diagnosed freak because if he wasn't...then WTF? WTF? WTF?

Pub Service

On flights under an hour, usually we offer an abbreviated version of our complimentary beverage service: the choices consist of orange juice or water. That's it. Count 'em. Two choices. 1, 2. I made an extremely clear announcement regarding this. Today I had this exchange...

Me: Sir, OJ or water?
6F : tomato juice
Me: OJ or water??
6F : Coke
Me: It's just orange juice or water today...
6F : coffee

In silence, I walked away at this point. Right up to the first class galley, and stared at the tequila minis in the liquor drawer until by osmosis, I returned to normal.

Cropdusting

Here's a tip.  You're on a flight and you need to pass gas. You probably ate the 100% Angus Beef (yeah right) cheeseburger we sold you or drank the milk that was catered a gillion hours ago unrefrigerated. Not my problem but it becomes everybody's problem when you're stinking up the recycled air we have no choice but to breath in. There's not much you can do except hide the fact that you are the source so that you may live to reach your final destination. So this is what you do...you cropdust.

Get out into the aisle and walk with purpose. Don't let your face show any signs of clenching , struggle, or embarrassment or we will find you and judge you and hate you and be disgusted by you. Don't walk too slow or too fast. Steady now.  Cropdust up and down the aisle ever so evenly and watch the embarassment other passengers have in trying to deny that it was them.

"What Do You Have?"

'Seriously?'

I actually say that outloud and give a seering look of complete idiocracy in response when dumbasses ask me what I have on the beverage cart. You want me to spell it out for you? How about I follow you to the lavatory and wipe your ass too? What do you think I have? Fresh fruit smoothies? Milkshakes? Blended margaritas? It's an airplane. Either listen to the announcements, look at the menu directly in front of you, or make an edumakated guess.

I am not a trash can.

Yeah, I know one of my most glamorous duties as a flight attendant is to collect "used service items" aka your gross garbage. And I really have no problem doing it except when....

1. You hand me garbage as soon as you walk on the plane. Your response to my "Good morning! Welcome aboard!" is trash. There is no 'I'm so sorry to do this to you' or 'thank you so much'. I just get trash coming at me before I've even had a chance to process what's happening and to refuse your lipstick kissed Starbucks cup. The pilot I was flying with yesterday witnessed this sadly common event and said to me "Wow. People actually do that?" Thank you! It'd be one thing if you asked to be shown where the nearest trash receptacle was so that YOU can own your environmental impact but instead you shove your double tall iced 2% no foam vanilla latte cup in my face.

2. I'm coming through the aisle for garbage collection and it looks like you shat all over your cup & beverage napkin and put it in my bare hand instead of attempting to place it in the GARBAGE BAG.

3.  You hand me garbage piece by piece.  It's so bizarre.  Why not consolidate your shit and hand it to me all at once in a nice, neat, ball? Sometimes I see the guy who had his itsy-bitsy coffee with 5 sugars and 4 creams hand me each single-serving package back one at a time, shooting hoops. This does not kill any significant amount of flight time mister...just makes me want to kill you.

4.  You take up way too much room in the trash bag because you had to bring on board 2 large pizza boxes and a Big Gulp. You're grosser than your garbage.

5. You ring you flight attendant call button as soon as we've sat down to have a little break and maybe eat something ourselves...I swiftly walk up to your row thinking it's an emergency (because that's what the button is for!) but no, you indeed have interrupted my dinner that I'm already eating next to the lavatories so that I can pick up a napkin that you just had to get rid of now.

6. You try to give me garbage as I'm doing the somewhat sanitary beverage service. Think about what you're doing.

7. You think there's a garbage can on the clean beverage cart and toss your shit into it without asking when we're not looking.  You just put your snotty tissue into someone else's ice dumbass.

8. Your seat back pocket is not a garbage can. I'll walk by, see the pocket stuffed full of shit and linger.  I'm here to get it off your hands, this is the opportunity. You see me. Oh you see me, but you're just too lazy to reach in and transfer the trash to the proper place. I get it! That mass paperback is just so enthralling that you can't tear yourself away for 2 seconds. I totally get it. And you are the one that rings the call button 2 seconds later for princess garbage pick-up. Your checked luggage never makes it to your final destination does it? Maybe it was re-routed to the nearest landfill...

Will I be flying with Rhonda, Barbara, or Wendy today?

So when I get assigned to fly, 9 times out of 10, I've never met anyone I'm working with before.  It's a crapshoot.  Chance, fate, karma? I never know what freak(s) I may have to fly a 1 to 4-day trip with in a tin can with nowhere to hide.  The crew's dynamic is probably the most critical determinant of the trip's fun factor.  So the first thing I do to gain an idea of what I'm in for is to look up the names of my co-workers.  What I've found is that if the names of my crew members are something along the lines of Rhonda, Barbara, Wendy, Jean, and/or Edna, the trip is gonna suck.  It just is. My theory of 'old lady name judgement' is not 100% accurate...I mean, on layover I've definitely knocked a few back with Fannie and knickerknocked hotel rooms that one crazy night with Deb, but it is almost always true if the old lady name corresponds to a low seniority number...a senior mama I like to call 'em.  If this is the case, I don't take chances. I fake food poisioning, Swine Flu, or Mad Cow Disease (whichever I haven't abused too heavily in the last month) and hope that I fly with Apple, Harlow, and Rumor next trip.

sCrew Scheduling

They are the puppeteers that control me. One false move and I could be banished to the arctic for days...I could be sent on 4 all-nighters in a row with a bunch of vampires (that's what I call the sallow, haggard looking FAs [no, not the hot kind of vampire] who choose these flights regularly)...I might be forced to work 14.5hr days with only 'cheese food' to eat...I could be stuck working with crews who's senority numbers are in the single digits (oh please, have mercy, that one may be the worst).

Crew Scheduling.  They are programmed into my cell phone as the most heinous ringtone imaginable. When they call & I hear the death metal march reverberate, my heart palpitates...my palms instantly sweat...I lose my shit everytime.  They tell me when and where I need to be, where I will be going, when I get to come home, if I need my bathing suit or snow shoes, if I should prepare myself for the Vegas douchebags or the Orange County bitches...and if I don't follow their command or if there is any trace of attitude in my reactions, I could be 'flagged' and eveything I said above can and will happen.  I say to myself, "Just suck it up! Show no emotion. You are a machine. Someday there will be retribution!" I know no faces of whom these beings are, just omniscent voices and first names (which are probably aliases), of whom every detail of my working life is in control of. Obviously, this is for their safety...I can't stab the heel of my 2-inch pump into a face I've never seen.

I remember being on a layover wanting to hang myself from my hotel bathroom's shower rod somewhere in buttfuck, Alaska. It was the dead of winter, -29 degrees and I'm in a fucking skirt. Crew Scheduling reassigned my freezing ass from laying over in sun to snow at the last minute.  I can see them all now...sitting around the office in their Old Navy jeans behind their computers with pictures of cats as screensavers...they're cackling, laughing sinisterly at my expense, picturing my snot and tears dripping icicles as I struggle to make it from airport to hotel van without my joints snapping. So there I am, contemplating my dramatic death, but my fingers are too fucking frozen to tie the noose. But really, it was the flashing thought of Crew Scheduling, fuming and irrate for having to find a trip replacement due to my suicide, which stopped me. I couldn't allow another reserve to pay because of me. I believe there is karma even in death. So I guess Crew Scheduling saved my life...mother effer, they always win.

Ice, Ice, Baby

So as I've said, airplane ice is a BIG effing deal (to the FAs and passengers) and thus deserves its own post. I worked a flight from LAX-SJD yesterday and one member of my crew lost it. Literally lost it, grumbling through grated teeth to the other FA working the beverage cart, "Go to the back galley and get me my medication." He was completely serious. It was a difficult flight to begin with (most Cabo flights are) but the final straw for him was because of the I-C-E...because a couple of twenty-something year old girls from Vancouver (an important detail as FAs can uncannily peg anyone's 'neediness level' based on route cities) refused their drinks because the ice was...melting. Really. Really? Really. That's what ice does you stupid, stupid girls, it melts. Especially after sitting on a full plane for a few hours going into Mexico. What do you want us to do? Run to the corner store? Throw the melting ice into the freezer we don't have? Order it to be sent up via super bird?

Besides those effing stupid girls, ice is also a BIG effing deal with particular cultures, notably with asian and hispanic cultures. They DO NOT want anything to do with it. It's almost scary, the aversion they have to frozen water. It's like there's poop in it or something...and that's exactly why mexican citizens hate ice. Their ice is unclean therefore all ice is unclean. They interpret our question of "Would you like ice in that?" as "Would you like feces with your beverage?" And for the asian cultures, I dunno...I just think it's a temperature issue which would explain the guaranteed hot tea requests after screaming, "NOOOO ICE! Ok!?! NOOOOOOOOOOOO ICE! AHHHH!" accompanied by animated hand gestures which I guess are supposed to mean the same thing but really look like they want to murder me, the terrifying ice monster.

Then we have those who are very specific to the exact number of ice cubes they would like. 1, 2, 3 and a half, 7, etc... you picky bastards deserve poop in your beverage.

As for the flight attendants like myself, nothing makes us happier than if the ice we are catered is of "quality". Meaning no chunks of shapeless, cracked mass, but if it's uniformly cubed we rejoice. We Hallelujah! and high-five eachother as if the plane were empty...if it's 'good ice.' The only reason why is because the sodas foam less so that we can get through the cabin with you yelling 'NO ICE!' or insane 2.75 ice cube requests that much faster and so then can get back to the jumpseat to catch up on the latest smut in the US Weekly we stole from you.

My utter hatred for Diet Coke

     Besides hot tea, did you know Diet Coke is the most annoying drink you can order from a flight attendant/air hostess/stewardess/oh miss!/sky hag/slut of the skies? Why? Something about the reaction it has with the ice (a separate post devoted solely to airplane ice to come btw)...I stand there for awkwardly long lengths of time, all bored, needy eyes on me taking a break from their super fun Sudoku and I just know they're wondering 'WTF? Will she hurry up and get to my row already? Why is she just standing there?' You wanna know wtf I'm doing? I'm busy watching the foam dissolve painfully slow, having now ample opportunity to contemplate the tortured death of the passenger who ordered it...the passenger who watched me pour liquid cancer into their plastic cup carefully & methodically....and then asked for the whole can.
     I struggle to compose myself, using every ounce of energy I've got (given to me by that delicious raw russet potato aka my 'crew snack') to move the cart along one more row. And as I set down another bag of partially-hydrogenated party mix, I wince because I know it's coming. I see 22A start to mouth those two words to me in slow motion as if this were some cruel joke to further drive me to commit my first homicide at 35,000 ft...I attempt telepathy to change the inevitable outcome- How about water, no ice? I'll even get you two beverages! Yes, I'm desperate now, I'll even run for a HOT TEA dammit! Anything but...well, you know. I can't even say it. But my face can no longer hide the horror as this nightmare repeats itself row after row after row.