The Jetway Surprise

I've just landed in location B, deplaning is complete, the plane looks like a war zone, my crew and I have packed up our shit, and have checked every seat back pocket for free magazines on the way off.

K, so now we're ready to exit the aircraft to change planes and head out to location C...often times after having to sit at an airport for an efficient 3+ hours. Don't get me started.

So there is often a jetway exchange that happens if there is a new crew waiting to come aboard our bird. Sometimes it stresses me out because you never know who you might be running into during one of these swaps. I could step off that plane and into a minefield. Senses are heightened, eyes peeled. Am I going to run into that bitch who almost got me fired last year? Yeah lady, I found out. Someone who's tried to bone me and a whole other slew of stewardesses perhaps? Yeah you married douchebag, we know. Maybe that freakshow who talked my ear off about her rambunctious cat for 6 HOURS on a transcon? Uuuuuuugh.

You never know...I cross my fingers every time and hope to run into a cool person but the chances of that happening are slim to none. BUT if this does happen, it's like you've won the lottery.  If you happen to run into a flight attendant you even somewhat remember remotely liking, there is cheering and clapping and jumping and hugging. It's ridiculously effusive. You'd think we'd just gotten off a deserted island or have been reunited with our conjoined twin by this rare display of happiness.  Then you're forced to catch up at cracked out speeds because you only have about 30 seconds before the agents are rolling their eyes and breathing down all our necks to turn the plane.  It's quite the scene. And God forbid, if another FA from your crew receives the coveted attention and you don't, there is jealousy, hair pulling, sometimes bitch slapping, and heavy heavy drinking at the hotel bar about it later on...

Pan Am

Ok listen up. I'm only gonna say this once.

No, I am not watching 'Pan Am'. Well, to be real, I did try to watch like 10 minutes of it last week to see what all the hype was about and I was sooooo bored I almost thought I would have rather been at work...in the current time era. And that's lady balls crazy talk. I did enjoy the cute little hats and vintage luggage though. That's about it.

See, this is my beef about why this annoys me a little. Do you go to your doctor's appointments and ask your MD if they've seen Grey's Anatomy, House, or any other multitude of totally inaccurate medical drama shows? Prolly not. When you get pulled over for speeding, do you roll down your window and say, "Hey Mr/Mrs. Copper, before you get down to business, I gotta ask, have you seen Cops? Perhaps Hawaii Five-O?" Nope, you most certainly do not. And hey, how about when you go out to eat, "Excuse me chef, have you seen anything on the Food Network before?" Stop it. You do not.

The real job is drama enough. I don't need to watch a glammed up 1960s version of it. Guys, need I remind you that I eat my preservative ladden space meals next to people pooping. Remember that.

That's all.

Accompanied Minors

The situation: 2 UMs. Kids from hell: girl-5, boy-7, sister & brother. They clearly hate each other and are literally birthed by Satan.

UMs (unaccompanied minors) can be tricky. I don't know why flight attendants are innately trusted to act as babysitters. We receive no specific training of the kind and I'm personally super awkward around most kids unless they are infantile and I can thus pet their perfectly fine baby hair and coochie-coo them for the 10 seconds it takes for me to want to give them back to their birth vessel.

So check it - Grandma drops off the kids for the flight. Checks them in as UMs. They arrive on our plane. We brief them. We hate them. We throw snacks and soda and run away from them.

The flight takes off. Kids are immediately dinging call lights. HE'S TOUCHING ME! SHE'S TOUCHING MEEE! HE TOOK MY CHIPS! SHE SPILLED MY DRINK! I think about what I want to do to temper this situation but then I think to myself that I cannot go to jail right now. It's not a good time for me.

Passengers around these little toxins are becoming frustrated. One speaks up and makes us aware of the most fucked up situation ever.  She thinks she saw their parents in the boarding area having a little pow-wow with grandmama, the getaway accomplice....BUT also that those sly SOB parents are ON the plane as we speak. They're towards the back drinking Sutter Home merlot as if it were a beaujolais nouveau.

So basically, these dilusional 'parents of the year' paid the modest UM fee, had grandma drop them off as if they were traveling alone so that we, the lucky flight attendants, could babysit their freakishly unbehaved aliens during the flight while they sat in the back pretending not to know their own kind. Sick.

I gotta hand it to them for thinking outside the box, it was quite the clever scheme if it would've worked out...but c'mon. Sack up and parent your children as hard as I can imagine it to be. I have the luxury to imagine because I didn't make the choice to mash 'n smash irresponsibly only to ask Maury who the father was, & more than once.

Not Everyone Likes a Poke

Hole-y Fuck.

I swear, as proud as I am to wear my wings and roll my smooth TravelPro around the world, there are many, many, 'pretty much everyday I work' times when I want to position myself directly underneath someone stowing their oversized luggage hoping it will injure me on the job.

I experience this emotion often (as this blog would clearly indictate) but frequently during beverage cart set-up.

One would think that setting up the beverage cart for service would be a standard practice, especially with the dinosaurs being in the industry for centuries. I mean, how many fucking ways are there to arrange some juice boxes, water bottles, and coffee pots on top of a trolley? Is it really that big a deal if I put my orange juice box in front of the cranberry? The coffee pot on my left? Stir sticks placed on the outside of the cart as opposed to on the inside?  The cups stacked too high?

Apparently to Nazi Nancy (we'll call them), these are HUGE deals. You do not dare rearrange her set-up of the holy bevy cart. It's her creation, her first-born, her way of organization and control.  I have a sinking suspicion she's a cat hoarder in her personal life.

So we're assigned a set of standard duties during each flight and naturally, a bunch of control freak weirdos request beverage detail position like single Nancy does. Probably the biggest source of contention out there regarding this riveting subject is the poking of holes in the tops of juice boxes to create a faster and smoother flow.  Flight attendants either love it or hate it. Lovers think the smoother flow eliminates splashing and also allows you to get through the cabin faster since the liquids are pouring faster. Haters hate because it pours too fast and they overpour the miniature doll cups everytime. Whatthefuckever Gina! I don't give 2 shits if you wanna siphon your juice through a catheter because you prefer how it pours. It will pour. See I don't care either way, but if you dare stabbed your pen into the top of those juices boxes when 'ol Nance wasn't looking, you're screwed. She'll grab that pen and poke a hole in you.

The Super Stew

Rewind back to your school days and remember how there seemed to always be that one person in class who had their hand permanently raised? That kid who did extra credit when they didn't need to, the dummy who brought their teachers gifts on holidays, volunteered in soup kitchens after school and the 7 sports teams/marching band practices they juggled effortlessly...the ass-kissers of my youth. Now in my professional adult life, these goody goodies have transformed into adult monsters, into what I like to call the "Super Stews" of the airline industry. There's about a 95% chance that I will work with at least one of these over-achieving weirdos and with a modest 3-6 person flight crew, those odds are maddening.

Let me help you with the obvious.

I'm talking about a sect of super stews who actually piss people off because of their "niceities". For example, this one flight attendant I know (and call in 'dead' for whenever I find out I'll be working with him) meets as many fully capable passengers at the boarding door and asks them where their seat assignment is. They answer him in fear that their seat is about to be changed or something but no, Super Stew emphatically says "Oh, 30B! What a lovely middle seat close to the bathrooms you've got there! Follow me!" and proceeds to lift their heavy luggage over his head before fully capable lady/mister can say anything about it. When a call light dings, he actually sprints up and down the aisles making such a distracting scene to be of service, treating every beverage request as if it were as dire as a medical emergency. He won't let anyone (passengers and crew) do anything for themselves except use the lavatories. I once dropped my pen on the galley floor sitting next to him and he literally dove to pick it up before I even knew I had dropped it. Like for real, he was on the galley floor risking contracting hepatitis for my Bic. This is not being nice people, it's over-the-top coked out maddness if you witnessed it with your own eyes.

This phenomena of brown-nosing is annoying as hell. We're not in high school anymore dude. You're not gonna get the teacher's pet award for wearing your super stew cape to work. This behavior creates an expectation that cannot be met by the bare-minimalists such as myself...and it comes across as offensive and condescending to those who know how to fly. Make no mistake though, I do my bare minimum like a champ and have lovely comment cards to prove it thank you very much.

TBTL with Luke Burbank, addressing the recent podcast interview.

Hi all. So my little blog seems to be getting a lot more hits than usual thanks in large part to being interviewed on the podcast 'TBTL with Luke Burbank' on August 8th. (http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=577&a=32163)

If you've heard it (and the following two follow-up podcasts to the feature) you'll see that for various reasons, it stirred up some mutha fuckin' emotions ya'll, and some bi-polar ones at that. I was widely hated and told to go fuck myself (they didn't get it), but then also loved and thanked by a second wave of peeps who are clearly fabulous (they got it). Basically, what I think is that a lot of stupid people whom are most likely the very passengers that inspire many of my rants drank the haterade instead of the coffee, tea, or me. This is probably because they are severely unhappy with their lives and need to get laid or take a laxative.  I'm fully aware now that in taking such an extreme stance, I gotta be ready to take on even more bullshit than I already do on the plane.

So bring it on general public. You inspire me with your stupidity and senseless humor. Without you, I'd have no material. Kisses!

We Do Not Have Pillows & Blankets...And For Good Reason.

Have I ever told you about the time I found jizz on an airplane blanket?



I have found jizz on an airplane blanket.



So the next time you didn't come prepared and ask your flight attendant for a jizz blanket that we no longer supply, don't huff through your shivers looking annoyed. You should be thanking us for this particular budget cut.