Cruising Attitude

by Heather Poole

  Flight attendants work with the public in confined spaces with recycled air for hours on end, so germs are a major concern. It’s why so many of us are addicted to antibacterial hand lotion. No joke, flight attendants alone probably keep Purell in business. This is also why our work shoes were not allowed to enter the house—a Jane-enforced contamination-free zone. On layovers Jane wore flip-flops in the hotel rooms and always used a washcloth placed on the bathroom counter to protect her toiletries. A shower cap became the perfect buffer for the remote control. Comforters went straight to the floor, since it was common knowledge they were rarely, if ever, cleaned. Hotel tubs were doused with a sprinkle of Bon Ami Jane kept inside a Ziploc baggie and scrubbed with a sponge tucked inside her tote bag at all times (and replaced often). Because there were rumors of flight attendants using coffeepots to wash out their hose, and because I myself had once witnessed a housekeeper using the same rag on the toilet seat and the rim of a glass, coffeepots and glasses got dunked in scalding hot soapy water for a good ten minutes before being used.

  A no-nonsense woman with a little-girl voice, Jane went green way before it became popular. She’d collect newspapers and empty cans on flights even if she were landing at an airport that did not recycle. In 1995, most did not. Ten years later things weren’t much different. In 2006, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reported after a yearlong study that the U.S. airline industry discarded enough aluminum cans each year to build fifty-eight Boeing 747 airplanes and discarded nine thousand tons of plastic and enough newspapers and magazines to fill a football field to a depth of more than 230 feet. Even today what flight attendants collect on board is not recycled at many airports, particularly the smaller ones, though most airports do have recycling stations available throughout the terminals. And while you may see flight attendants collecting aluminum cans and newspapers on most of your flights, many are doing this of their own accord in hopes that somehow the neatly sorted collection will miraculously make its way to a recycling station. Jane was no different. From time to time “trash” would even make its way home where she could dispose of it properly. Nothing too crazy, just an empty water bottle here and a rinsed out paper cup from Starbucks there, random things she’d acquire over the course of a three-day trip. Jane was so passionate about protecting the environment that one houseguest decided it might be easier to pack a small bag of garbage inside her suitcase and fly home with it than sort it the way Jane had instructed.

  Even though Jane was into organic food and I liked Chef Boyardee, we got along surprisingly well and quickly became good friends. Even after I caught her regifting a shirt I bought for her birthday. She made no apologies about it, either. That’s what I liked about her, along with the fact that she could be super sweet, the kind of person who’d run, literally, two miles to the grocery store in a foot of snow to buy oranges when I got sick. When I began feeling down about the way things were going—more like not going—with Brent, Jane would write words of encouragement on Post-it notes and stick them on the bathroom mirror for me to find in the morning. And she was funny, too. Only Jane could make me laugh after Brent refused to take me to the airport because his favorite wrestling show was going to be on television. He gave me two choices. Either he could take me to the airport two hours early or I could call a cab. I did what any other flight attendant wouldn’t do. I took a cab. Most of my colleagues will walk three miles uphill in a foot of snow to save a buck. That’s how much I liked Brent. Plus, I didn’t want to spend a second longer than absolutely necessary at an airport when I could be on the couch with him. And Hulk Hogan.

  Jane had a killer figure that disappeared under the polyester tent she wore to work. Like me, Jane was still on probation, so her dress had yet to be altered. Since she was just two weeks behind me in seniority, we made a pact to do it together and then go out and celebrate our short hemlines, which, believe it or not, we looked forward to more than using our passes for the first time. That’s how dowdy we looked compared to our more senior coworkers. Imagine our excitement when that day finally came, followed by shock when Jane showed the seamstress exactly where she wanted her hem to fall and the seamstress barked in broken English, “No—uniform!”

  Unfazed, Jane said, matter-of-fact as can be, “Do it.”

  The woman shook her head violently. “Uniform—too short!”

  After a good ten minutes of this we finally got our way, but we never did hear the end of it. Whenever we’d walk by the dry cleaning shop where the seamstress worked behind a sewing machine in the front window, she’d stop working on what she had in her hands and slowly shake her head at us. And every time, Jane would yell out, “Not too short!”

  Turns out, we didn’t go short enough, because one day while jogging the famous Venice boardwalk on a layover in California, Jane spotted the captain from her flight, a real ladies’ man with Robert Redford hair and a reputation for dating flight attendants. He was headed her way on rollerblades.

  “Hey!” Jane called out to him as he passed her by.

  He came to a stop immediately, smiling at the brown-haired beauty wearing short shorts and a jog bra. “Well, hello, little lady. I’m Brad.” He held out a hand.

  She just looked at him. “I know who you are. I’m on your trip!”

  Later on, she complained, “It’s like they have no idea we have butts and boobs under those dresses!”

  Even so, pilots loved Jane. This is because Jane believed in treating everyone fairly, which meant she always offered the cockpit food even if they weren’t scheduled to eat on a leg. This is not the norm. It’s an unwritten rule that flight attendants get first dibs on any leftovers from their cabin before offering anything to other members of the crew. Then, after every flight attendant has had an opportunity to eat, we might call the pilots to see if they’re hungry. If they are, we’ll offer an entrée. That’s it. No extras. But Jane treated pilots like first-class passengers, offering up hot towels, appetizers, two different kinds of bread, and both dessert choices if she had them, which is why it came as no surprise when she broke up with a mountain climber from Denver and started dating a pilot she met on a flight from San Diego. Whenever she’d get an earful from another flight attendant for giving pilots “our” food, Jane would just say, “It’s not their fault our union’s negotiating skills suck.” She had a point. On domestic routes crew meals were not in our contract.

  At my airline before 9/11, flight attendants working domestic routes were catered “snack packs” instead of crew meals. These snack packs consisted of a cat-sized portion of canned tuna, a couple of crackers, a packet of mayo, a brownie, and the smallest apple ever grown on U.S. soil, all thrown inside a plastic drawstring bag. After 9/11, the not-so-filling snack packs were replaced with zilch, while pilots continued receiving the same crew meals they always had. Imagine working a twelve-hour day sustained only by white dinner rolls and soda while having to serve the cockpit a steak with veggies and a baked potato with all the accoutrements, and a slice of cheesecake on the side. Who wouldn’t be resentful? Now, flight attendants have no choice but to bring food from home, which isn’t always easy to do on a multiple-day trip, and which is why Jane’s attitude toward pilots’ food was so rare.

  Jane was definitely unique, kind of like the house we lived in. It was in desperate need of a paint job and stood out from the other immaculate homes on the quiet tree-lined street in more ways than one. A cracked walkway led up to three lopsided steps and an aggressively overgrown bush blocked what otherwise would have been a lovely view into Jane’s bedroom window, which would have been the sunroom if the house had not been illegally converted to add more rooms. All the homes in the neighborhood possessed the same floor plan, which might be why our elderly neighbor across the street spent the better part of his days staring at that very bush, which was all that stood between him and knowing what was really going on inside a house full of attractive women, an odd Russian cab driver, and a frequently barking border collie. Some days our dear
neighbor would walk outside and pretend to collect the newspaper (his neighbor’s), or take out the garbage (on noncollection days), or water the grass (that had already been watered), all in an effort to get a better look at us. We’d smile and wave. He’d turn around and walk inside. All the navy blue polyester and rolling bags in the world didn’t seem to tip him off, and eventually he reported “the whorehouse” to police. When a couple of cops stopped by the house to check out the situation, it didn’t escape my attention when a buff bald police officer placed a business card on our kitchen table and said, making direct eye contact with Tricia, a petite blonde with double Ds from Mississippi, “Feel free to call if the neighbor continues to harass you. Or if you need anything else.”

  The neighbor wasn’t the only one who was confused. The cable guy’s eyes about popped out of his head when I answered the front door wearing a short black silk robe with pink fuzzy slippers, my hair a tangled mess, and asked him to please, please, please try and be quiet because my roommates were still sleeping.

  “We were working all night last night,” I added. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when Tricia came stumbling down the stairs wearing a silk eye mask on top of her head and a short, somewhat see-through nightie. I noticed a look of confusion followed by outright fear sweep across the repairman’s face.

  “No, no, no, we’re flight attendants!” I exclaimed. The cable guy and I laughed.

  Tricia, completely oblivious to the strange man standing in the middle of our living room with a bundle of cable wrapped over a shoulder, called out on her way to the kitchen, “After I grab a cup of coffee remind me to tell ya about the guy who tried to hide a gigantic package between his legs last night.”

  I swallowed hard, looked at the repairman and smiled innocently. “She’s talking about luggage.”

  At least I hoped so, because out of all my roommates in the house, if anyone was going to talk about sex it was Tricia. Tricia went through men like most flight attendants go through first-class bottled water. Some she met at bars in Manhattan, others she either met on the airplane or through fellow coworkers whose boyfriends took one look and immediately wanted to set her up with their friends. Tricia was the kind of flight attendant that guys specifically looking to hook up with a flight attendant dreamed about. The kind of girl who wouldn’t think twice about changing out of uniform in the lav after a flight to put on sexy lingerie and nothing else under a buttoned-up company-issued trench coat. She’d walk through the airport terminal greeting everyone who passed with a friendly hello, before exiting baggage claim and hopping into an expensive sports car with an attractive man behind the wheel. Not shy about discussing the details of these short-lived but hot and heavy romances, she’d frequently declare, “Y’all are not gonna believe what I did this weekend!” The only thing we truly wouldn’t believe would be something that sounded believable. That’s how crazy her life was. But it wasn’t all good.

  Whenever Tricia would utter the words “Oh my God, y’all,” Jane would take a deep breath, roll her eyes, and quickly disappear. The tales were always elaborate and interesting, and in the beginning I loved listening to them. Take for instance the time she got into a car wreck and woke up in the street, her shoes stolen right off her feet. “Those were expensive shoes, too!” she cried, tears streaming. Never mind what had happened to whoever had been traveling in the car with her. Another time she left three large Nordstrom shopping bags on board a flight she’d worked from San Francisco. While waiting with a group of others for the employee bus she realized what she’d done and quickly ran back to the gate as fast as she could only to find the bags were missing. A handful of cabin cleaners denied ever having seen them. Two days later the bags were anonymously returned, but Tricia refused to ride the bus to the employee parking lot because she thought that ground personnel were talking about her. She may have been right because she began receiving death threats. It started happening around the same time she had to take out a restraining order on an old boyfriend who kept driving by our house.

  “He’s stalking me!” she screamed, running into the house late one night and waking up everyone. This sort of thing happened so often it got to the point where Tricia’s very presence became overwhelming. The mere sight of her car parked in the drive was equivalent to a dark cloud looming over the house. It didn’t matter if I’d had a layover in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Bakersfield, California, as soon as I’d see that used silver Mercedes behind Yakov’s yellow cab, I’d instantly want to fly back to wherever I’d just come from to avoid the stress.

  Luckily each new man took Tricia away for a good two to three months at a time. They’d spend some time together at his apartment in the city or house in the Hamptons and life at the house would become peaceful once again. But like clockwork a big blowup would occur and Tricia would come storming back, dragging the ab machine none of us had ever seen her use behind her. To Jane’s horror, she’d ditch the eyesore in the middle of the living room and leave it there collecting dust until the next guy swept her off her feet. And she’d start cooking up a storm. While the brownies and lemon bars cooled and a gigantic pot of vegetable stew simmered on the stove, she’d replay the breakup details over the phone in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and an opened address book on her lap. Starting with the As, she’d torture us until the last and final Z. Tricia had a lot of friends.

  “You’re Tricia’s roommate!” coworkers would say whenever I’d happen to mention her name in flight. “Oh my God, I love her! She’s hilarious.”

  I’d just smile and nod. No one had a clue what it was like living with her.

  Part of the problem was that Tricia had the most crash pad seniority. She was the queen bee. She got the largest bedroom in the house and the entire place was decorated with photographs of her draped all over friends from every corner of the world. Pots and pans, furniture and rugs, microwaves and air-conditioning units, everything belonged to her, either by purchase or by inheritance. Even the bed I slept on had once been hers. I bought it for twenty bucks—the same amount she had paid another flight attendant five years prior, back before it had a big green paint stain. Perhaps she had dated an artist. Because car magazines filled our mailbox when she dated the NASCAR guy; when the golf pro came on the scene, a full set of clubs took over the hall closet leaving absolutely no room for coats and jackets; and much to Jane’s delight, gourmet cookbooks began to stack up on the kitchen counter after Tricia hooked up with a head chef at a five-star restaurant in the city.

  It’s not that I didn’t like her, but I could only take her in small doses, which is why I almost died the day I got called out to work a trip with her. When I realized we weren’t just going to be on the same airplane, but in the same cabin—business class—I wanted to slit my wrists and set myself on fire. Business class is the most junior position on the airplane for a reason. It’s a lot of work. In coach there’s not much to offer passengers, while in first class the passengers usually sleep through the service. But in business class passengers want to sample it all and then some. To prove this point a colleague once offered business-class passengers a silver-lined tray piled high with silver spoons.

  “Would you care for a spoon?” he asked, and without saying a word passengers would reach for one. Two minutes later he walked back through the cabin and collected all the spoons. Next he put a box of Kleenex on a silver-lined tray and one by one passengers reached for a tissue. So while it was bad enough working with the most demanding passengers on the airplane without crew drama, I couldn’t imagine dealing with such a high maintenance group of people with a coworker like Tricia.

  To my surprise Tricia turned out to be a real joy to work with. The service went off smoothly and Tricia proved herself to be one of the most professional, hardworking, and friendly flight attendants I’d ever encountered. And that’s the moment I began to respect her. Passengers loved her, and I did, too! Honestly, Tricia and I had such a nice trip together that I would have “buddy bid” wi
th her if she’d asked. She never did. But who would’ve thought? Not me, that’s for sure. It just goes to show you never truly know someone until you’ve actually lived and worked with them first.

  Strangely, I had the opposite experience with Dee Dee. Dee Dee was, in a word, cool. She wasn’t a classic beauty, but she worked with what she had and always looked great. With a dark year-round tan and a trim build, she kept her black hair in the latest style and coordinated brightly colored sundresses with matching strappy sandals. Even though she was older than me, she had a youthfulness about her I’d never before seen in a woman her age. Dee Dee had been flying for seven years, so she had the most airline seniority in the house and always held the best international trips. I was in complete awe of her. If Dee Dee wasn’t taking in a show in London or shopping for spices in Jamaica or buying clothes in Paris or eating Wiener schnitzel in Austria or relaxing on the beach in Brazil, she was rollerblading the boardwalks of Long Island or taking the train into Manhattan before her trips, which always departed late at night. The woman had more energy than all of us in the house combined. On top of that she commuted from Arizona, where she lived with her husband and a cat named Doug. The day before each trip Dee Dee drove an hour to the airport to hop on a flight to Chicago, where she’d connect to another flight to New York, landing after midnight. I never heard Dee Dee going up the stairs late at night to get to the attic, but Jane did, all the time. It was always a topic of conversation the following morning.

  I’d never flown with Dee Dee before and I was excited about getting assigned a reserve trip with her to London. We always had a good time hanging out in the crash pad together, so I assumed the trip would be just as much fun. On the flight over she kind of gave me what I thought was the cold shoulder. I was a little surprised, but I figured she was just catching up with her friends after a few days off—after all, these were flight attendants she’d flown with every month for years. And she did make sure to include me in their plans for our thirty-six-hour layover in London.