Change My Baby

Guys. Unfortunate true story comin' atcha.

So this mother-of-the year dings her call light and asks this poor, unsuspecting flight attendant to...

"CHANGE MY BABY."

Yes. I know. Your mouth dropped wide open right about now.  This lady for realz held up her poopy alien spawn and thrust him into the arms of a co-worker of mine before he could appropriately respond.

What did he do about it?

He took the baby and walked towards the back of the plane until he found another baby.  He politely asked the new baby's parents if they would "trade babies" for a moment and explained what for.

So he took the new baby back up to the lady and handed this cuter baby girl over.  Obviously confused, the lady is speechless. And the flight attendant simply said, "I'm not a manny. You told me to change your baby so I did*."

(*all babies were eventually returned to their prospective owners).

The Toilet Paper Confession

Me and my lady junk are wiping the butt clean about something...

On layover, I always take the extra rolls of toilet paper from my hotel rooms.  It is a huge score to me when I find one neatly wrapped, just begging to be stuffed into my suitcase and delivered to my royal home throne, free shipping included.

So let's do the math. I average about 3-4 hotel stays a week, so that's about 12-16 rolls a month, or 144-192 rolls per year! Basically, I consider it to be a true perk of my job, a year-round supply of free 1-ply toilet tissue to sandpaper my tender bits smooth.

Most of us flight attendants are hoarders in some form or another. Everyone's got their thing: pens, magazines, certain "good" toiletries, condiments from room service trays left out in the hallways, Earl Grey, framed still life's...mine happens to be toilet paper.  Buttever, don't judge. We apparently save (not steal) everything we can and lug it around on our travels in fear that we could be stranded in some ghost town of a major city that has no stores.  We're cheap asses and our asses are cheap...we're accustomed to airplane toilet paper so hotel TP is luxiouriously barely better.

I learned of this tip from THE Winona Ryder of hotel-lifting, a dear flight attendant friend of mine who shall remain nameless. I was at her house when 'travel-ass' called and behold, a bare toilet paper roll taunted my asshole. I searched the cabinets frantically, and there she be, a brand spankin' (ha) new roll from a Heavenly™ Westin Hotel.

I could spot that kind of toilet tissue gold a mile away with my critical brown eye. Her secret had been flushed out.

Hijack Attack

Do you know how many times I've been hijacked?

No no, not my airplane...I've been verbally hijacked too many times to count...and by my own kind, fellow flight attendants. I'm sure many of you can relate to people like this in your lives, it's just that with flight attendants, you're fucking trapped, like really fucking trapped, like on an airplane, sometimes strapped into a jump seat next to said hijacker. No ransom moolah is coming through for you.

There's a pretty good chance that on any given trip, there's one. One flight attendant who's not picking up on my super obvious cues that I just need a minute to myself when I'm not out in the cabin getting barked at. Yeah I need a minute from the passengers but mainly from you you narcissist. It's you who really drains me by the end of the day, not the lady who held me personally responsible for not being able to guarantee a sulfite-free meal option or the man who asked me for an empty water bottle in which he could drain his catheter into from his seat. So please, on behalf of the socially decent, shut the fuck up. I just need a minute. I want a minute to look at Kim Kardashian fat pictures in peace without you reading over my shoulder and putting your 2 cents in. I want a minute to eat the lunch I brought without you asking what each and every ingredient is every time I take a bite. I need a minute to simply sit in silence without you interrupting my zen to tell me about your second divorce for the third time. I didn't ask. I don't want to hear about how you have a hair appointment on your next day off.

I'm hardly an anti-social person. I can be good at small talk with my crew. Sometimes I even enjoy it and may actually feel enough of a genuine connection to even exchange phone numbers with a crewbie only to hardly contact again. But there's a clear difference in the filter/awareness level between the social butterflies and these rude dudes I speak of. I started recording examples of this verbal diarrhea on my phone when I felt hijacked. No one believed the extent of this cluelessness until I showed them my proof. I have an almost 10 min audio clip of a single run-on sentence from a co-worker about the time she had the lead singer of Nickelback on her flight. Nickelback. I just couldn't fake interest with this one and proceeded to put my head down, ear plugs in, turned my back slightly, and opened up a book.

She continued...

How NOT to Hit on a Flight Attendant

Oh come on.

Admit it. You've dressed up (or thought about dressing up) as a slutty steward(ess) for Halloween. You've fantasized about role-playing a mile-high type scenario in the cockpit with a lover.  Now you're heading out of town on business, secretly hoping that there will be at least one banging hot (ok well at least a 5 out of 10) flight attendant in the crew that can distract you on your flight to XYZ. Although more rare nowadays, say you do hit the jackpot on this particular flight. You find yourself hot for a particular wo(man) in wings and you feel like you will kick yourself if you don't make a move before the plane lands. You've got nothing to lose right?

So what do you do? How do you do it? How do you ask a flight attendant out?

Well there doesn't seem to be much forethought in the approach because here's what's been done to me...and what you should never do.

- Please don't say, "Don't worry, I liked it." in response to my genuine apology if I've accidentally bumped my ass into your elbow or shoulder as I'm walking up the aisle.

- Catch me in the galley on break scarfing down my dinner and say, "Oh good. I thought you were anorexic." This is not a nice way of saying, Hey I think you're fit and I'm attracted to your bod.

- I'm serving you a beverage from the cart and you hand me a business card not so subtlety in front of a bunch of other passengers. You guys almost always work in I.T. and/or wear a low ponytail and suit from 1992.

- You try to buy me a drink...on the flight in which I'm working you fool.

- You tell me you are carrying half a million dollars in your suitcase. Short. Man. Syndrome.

You know I've got to hand it to you. I get that you're being ballsy. You're taking a chance. But just remember that this isn't a bar, I'm at work, stuck in a tin can. I'm completely sober, you're usually not.

And just so you know if maybe, just maybe you don't act like Mr/Mrs. Creep, some of us sky sluts have business cards of our own. ;)

I'm Back Bitches.

Hi people.

I know. I left. I left you without closure, without so much as even a break-up text.

But MILLIONS of my loyal followers have reached out to me over the last year about why I disappeared from the interwebs so suddenly. Apparently, you guys weren't completely tired of me bitching and pointing out the crazy shit you fools do. Trust me I never stopped, I just stopped writing it down here for a hot second/year.

Everyone needs a break right?. Like a yolo moment or two. A layover from the layover. To slam-click on life. To 'do not disturb' you know?

But bitches...I'm back at your request.

Expect a site update in the nearish future, a refresh, a new look, a hot new uniform if you will...

I've banked a biffy full of material since I last posted so let's have some fun again shall we?

xo, CTM

How did you get this trip?

HOW DID YOU GET THIS TRIP?

They just can't stand it can they?

Senior flight attendants who hold the holy grail of trips just go bananas when they show up to fly their high-time (worth lots-o-money) trips and a junior person has "weaseled" their way on to their trip. Well, that's often how they make us feel when we've barely stepped onto the plane and have 3 haggard faces perk up in surprise that a junior flight attendant may be in charge of the boat today.

Whaaaat?? This can't be. So and so was supposed to be on this trip. HOW DID YOU GET THIS TRIP?

Oh hello. Nice to meet you too guys. Thanks for the warm welcome.

I can't tell you how many times I get blasted by this airplane bomb. In this industry of infinite change, it's not that weird for a fresher face to be working a nice trip now and then. Please, let us have it without grief. Let me feed myself something other than top ramen this month and just shut up and let me work something worth something for once.  It's not my fault Donna called in sick at the last minute. I swear I didn't steal this extended beachy layover from her swiftly in the night. I didn't bribe Ron with money or sexual favors in trade to stay at a hotel not located in the midwest. It's not your business how or why I'm part of your crew but you're part of mine too.

I promise you, we can pour cokes just as fast and know how to be a cell phone Nazi just a stern. Sometimes when I get this question and I clearly got lucky picking it up last minute, I lie and say it was on my line (assigned to me by the company) and just watch the confusion in their faces build and I can tell they are going to call crew scheduling first chance they get to bitch about the mistake they must've made. Get over it. Let's work, make money, see some cool shit, and pretend to not know each other when I see you in the crew room next month.

An Altitude of Excuses

I'm out of town, at home.

I love my job.*          *rarely

But still, here is one of the only reasons why: I can use my job as an excuse to get out of anything.

Say I'm on the phone with someone I don't want to be on the phone with...your parents, an ex, a bill collector, telemarketer, a Jehovah's witness, whomever. Most people feel trapped and are too polite to cut the convo.  Nope, not me. Not flight attendants. We are able to interrupt mid-sentence abruptly but without offense and say, "Oh shit, they're boarding. I gotta go." And click. You're free from the shackles of annoyance and no one bitches at you about it later. No one thinks you're rude because it's your job to be out of touch.  But what am I really doing? Not a goddamn thing.

Often times, I add that I'm working a long haul, transcontinental flight so that I'm free for at least 6 hours or more from a call back or better yet, I say I'm flying internationally and have no cell phone access for an X amount of time. But what am I really doing? I'm at home on my couch, eating snacks and watching The Bachelor and cannot be bothered during the most dramatic rose ceremony ever.

When that annoying "friend" you've blocked on Facebook due to her super interesting posts about the current weather and also her incessant photo posts of her baby, boyfriend, cat, baby & cat, cat & boyfriend, and boyfriend & baby texts you and asks, "Are you in town for coffee??" I get to respond with "Bummer!! Dang. I'm out of town working a trip. Can't. I'm so sorry. I'm trading trips next week so I'll let you know my schedule later mmmkay?"  And I can keep doing that every week for years for forever with her because it is in fact plausible that I actually am gone all the time in my line of work.

I can also use the excuse that I'm "on-reserve" or on-call and then really don't know what the hell my schedule holds. When that friend calls again and asks why I didn't call her back on that 3 hour break I said I would have in Chicago, I have a laundry list of excuses to pull from. I got "tagged" (scheduling had additional flying for me those bastards), my plane got diverted due to a medical EMERGENCY, I forgot my phone charger at the hotel, delay delay delay, I ran into someone I knew at the airport I hadn't seen in YEARS, delay, delay, delay, tag, tag, tag. But what am I really doing? I'm searching "animals falling asleep" on YouTube all cozy in my bed.

It is in these cases it pays (albeit very, very little) to not have a normally scheduled, trackable life.

Oh! Gotta go, they've started boarding.