by Joe Thomas
I spun around and marched back up the few rows to the front galley. Without us making eye contact, I lowered my jumpseat and sat down. She was seated next to me. Five inches away. I tried not touching her crusty skin while fastening my seatbelt and pulling the harness over my shoulders to lock into place. My plan on coming up with a plan to approach her was unsuccessful. Who fails at the pre-plan stage? Me. That’s who! I sat there staring ahead hoping to remain silent until I was in the back galley reactivating my plan. My wish was not granted.
“I’m sorry, Joe. I just didn’t want to leave that mother behind with her baby.”
“Listen,” I used muscles I never knew I had keeping my voice down. It was painful. The six passengers in the front row watched us like we were being broadcast live on Bravo. “you could’ve talked to me about it. Going behind my back like that, I can’t believe you did that. You pulled the rug out from under me. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes, “I spoke with the captain and we decided that it was best if you just keep your distance from that lady. She’s not in your section anyway, right?”
“Ursula,” my voice raised and I quickly brought it back down and started smiling again, “that’s not the point. You know what?” I recollected my thoughts, “Never mind. How would you feel if that lady treated you like that?”
She fidgeted with her watch for a few seconds, “It doesn’t matter. The decision was made.”
“Yeah, I was there. I know.” I broke eye contact with her and looked at the passenger in 1C and whispered, “It’s probably best if we only talk if it’s work related.”
“I’m sorry.”
An electric pulse shot through me, “No you’re not!” My voice escalated leaving no doubt passengers heard me, “Or you wouldn’t have done it in the first place.” The engines roared and we started down the runway. I turned my head as we took off and didn’t speak to her again for the rest of the flight.
When the airplane reached 10,000 feet and I heard the double chime alerting us it was safe to get up from our jump seats; I unbuckled my harness quickly and proceeded down the aisle to the back galley. Misty was informed of the entire situation while she set up the galley for our beverage service. All she did was apologize while I insisted it wasn’t her fault.
“I don’t plan on going anywhere near the front of the airplane. So if the pilots need to come out can you go up front?”
“Of course.” She slid her glasses to the top her head to hold back her bangs, “I’m surprised that Ursula didn’t support you. I’m a little disappointed in her.”
I pulled my apron over my head and wrapped the strings around my waist, “I’m disappointed in her and the Captain. What a fucking asshole.” My bad attitude stayed with me like a pulled muscle. An entire tube of Bengay couldn’t cure my pain.
Misty tried her best to make me happy, “I cleaned out the coffee pot really good so you can have a cup of coffee.”
I curled my lip, “Coffee from the airplane? Gross. I think warm piss tastes better.”
Our laughter erupted in the galley. It felt much better than anger.
Throughout the five hour flight, whenever I tiptoed by 19D or thought of Ursula, I felt defeated. Nauseated. Antichrist’s mother curled up in the fetal position, laid her head on her husband’s shoulder and slept the entire flight. She never asked for anything to eat or drink. And if my memory serves me correctly, she never got up to use the lavatory. Evil must only piss once a month. After passing by their row a few times, her husband eventually stopped making eye contact with me. That was fine. The only person who smiled at me from row 19 was her father. Was he flirting with me? I hope not. Although a little old man flirting would have distracted me from this terrible day. Misty calmed me down for most of the flight but nothing prevented me from dwelling on the repugnant way Ursula handled the outcome of this situation.
When we landed in Cleveland, I anxiously awaited 19D to make her way to the front of the airplane. I stood behind the bulkhead fake smiling at the passengers walking off the airplane. Would she apologize? Would she step out onto the jet bridge and start yelling at me? Would I just fucking lose it and punch her in the throat?
None of the above. She strutted up the aisle with her sunglasses covering her subhuman eyes, ignoring my existence. I was hopeful she’d apologize for treating me with such disrespect. But no such luck. That was asking too much. Instead she disregarded me like I was transparent. Obviously, it wasn’t worth her time to offer up an apology for ridiculing me in front of Misty and anyone else who wasn’t hearing impaired.
Standing there watching her step off the airplane, I focused all my energy on willing her to trip and chip a tooth. It failed. What can I say? My telekinetic abilities need some work. One after another her family filed out of the airplane behind her. The husband refused to make final eye contact with me which confirmed he was a piece of shit just like his wife. Her father, last off the airplane, looked at me and gave a mumbled, “Thank you,” under his breath. He said it flimsy so I don’t believe he meant it. Either that or he was simply too afraid that a member of his entourage overheard his kind gesture.
After the last passenger walked off the airplane I sprinted down the aisle to grab my luggage out of the overhead bin. Captain Emerson picked up the interphone one final time, “Hey guys. We’re outta here. Sorry today was such a rough day, Joe. Time to just let it go.”
Refusing to look towards the front of the airplane I ignored his well wishes. You can call me a bitch if it makes you feel better. You can call me a megasuperdupercuntybitch if you want; I really don’t care. The second the last passenger deplaned my only goal was to get as far away from Ursula and Captain Emerson as possible. Anything they said at that point fell on deaf ears. My job as the friendly smile-at-all-costs-no-matter-what flight attendant day was over. My priority was feeling better about myself because carrying around work related anger for the rest of the day was not an option. Did I say a day? Silly me. I didn’t carry this anger around for one day. I carried it around for months. Years. Why else do you think I am taking the time to tell this story in such detail?
It took weeks of soul searching and self analyzing to realize my rage was not towards 19D or Ursula. Don’t get me wrong, I’d instantly run them both over while they jaywalked in front of me. No, I was angry with myself. Disappointed that I allowed a passenger to speak to me with such contempt. As if I was nothing more than one of the seats on the airplane. Appalled that I didn’t stand up for myself against Captain Emerson and Ursula’s backstabbing decision. A decision I should have been invited to take part in. Saddened that I continued playing the victim days after everyone else went on with their lives. Because I am sure that’s what happened. I bumped into Ursula a few weeks later in the crew lounge and she acted like nothing happened. Did she fall and strike her head? Was it amnesia? Nope. It was her moving on with her life and being a bitch about it while I dug a hole deeper with regrets.
I expected a complaint letter from a member of the Antichrist’s family. I anxiously waited to be called into the supervisor’s office to recount this miserable flight. As days turned into months and then years, a complaint letter never came. Hopefully, when they checked into their hotel, she took a nice hot bath, a long nap, spent a few days thinking about what occurred on that rainy day in San Jose, and finally realized her wrongdoing. I have to believe that’s why I never received a complaint letter. 19D finally came to her senses about her disgusting behavior.
I still believe that to this day. If I didn’t, I’d never have found closure regarding this onboard altercation.
Divert To Harrisburg
When it comes to working flights to Orlando, I usually want to hide in the lavatory ignoring every Disney princess that makes her way onto the airplane. If you’ve seen one seven year old Elsa, you’ve seen them all, right? I know I have. My attitude might do a complete 180 if, say, a 24 year-old muscular blond Kristoff strut onto the airplane. Now that�
�s my kind of distraction. Talk about standing fully erect during boarding.
How can I describe an Orlando flight to someone who has never experienced one as a passenger? Loud, chaotic, disorderly, excessive amounts of carry on bags, children, Disney merchandise… Did I mention children? They practically outnumber the adults. Never will I understand how a family of six travels to Orlando spending a week bleeding out money on airfare, hotels, theme parks, souvenirs, and food. I can barely afford a cup of coffee at the Las Vegas airport.
Lucky for me, on this day I wasn’t working the flight from Orlando to New York City, I was traveling there for a flight attendant meeting. Before I go any further, let me explain about these meetings so that it makes sense why I was traveling to JFK as a passenger.
Everyone desires to be heard and have a voice at the table. There might be a select few who disagree with me and if so, that’s their right. If communicating and getting your point across doesn’t satisfy you in the way it does me then we can agree to disagree and move on with our lives. Agreed? However, if you do disagree—I don’t fucking get it. It makes no sense to me. As human beings we have been striving to be heard since we crawled out of our cave uttering nonsense to our cavemen neighbors. I’d rather be loud and proud letting it all out than sulk in the corner disappearing into the wallpaper never to be heard. Having the opportunity to express ourselves stretches back to our early childhood. At least for me it does. I faintly remember being a young teen sitting at the dining room table eating dinner with my entire family, vying for the exact moment the spotlight shined on me so I could interrupt whoever was speaking and have my say. I wanted to tell my story and share my experience, but mostly share my opinion. Maybe talk about how Jason Billings aggressively tried making me eat his snot in the back of the school bus on the way home. Confess I finally had a girlfriend but leave out the part about how she ignored me in school and only called late at night after her parents went to bed. Shit like that. Even if I couldn’t make the topic about me, I fought for the opportunity to hand out my personal opinions on everything from naming the family cat to vacationing in Canada.
With my ambition to express my every idea and thought since childhood, it should come as no surprise that when I became aware that there was a way to communicate and interact with the management team at my airline, I leapt at the chance to get involved. I jumped on it quicker than a wide-open standby flight to Paris.
I bet you thought I was gonna say big fat dick, but I didn’t.
The Standards Advisory Team-SAT for short-was conceived a few years after the airline’s inaugural flight. A creative and brilliant way to allow flight attendants, pilots, ground operations, and airport employees a safe and effective outlet to speak their mind and have a say in their daily work rules without losing their jobs. Each department’s SAT had a different goal. My knowledge for the other departments was minimal, but the flight attendant’s SAT was broken into five different subteams: Airplane Products, Hotel/Van Accommodations, Uniforms, Security & Safety, and finally, the one that made me stiff in my uniform pants, Scheduling.
I honestly don’t know why I had a boner for the scheduling aspect of my job but I did. The entire process was a mystery to me from the moment I started my airline career. How were pairings created? Why were there layovers in one city in lieu of another? Why did we always stay with the same flight attendants but never the same pilots? So many questions that never got answered. It drove me fucking crazy. I became eligible to apply after being liberated from my six month disciplinary action sentence. I filled out the online survey, interviewed with management, and was officially elected by my peers to represent them as their voice for the scheduling group. I was ecstatic and took my role as seriously as Catholics take fasting during Lent. Scratch that last part, I took it way more seriously.
Our SAT meetings were scheduled on a quarterly basis and often held in a conference room on the fifth floor of our headquarters building. It was an event. A special occasion that gave everyone involved the opportunity to speak—not only for ourselves—but on behalf of thousands of other flight attendants. I can’t deny, I was cocky as fuck about it. Whenever I attended one of these meetings I always flew up from Orlando the day before. When the airline pays for you to be in Manhattan for a work meeting your goal should be getting there as soon as possible. That way you get the most bang for your buck. Because I fly for free, my buck was zero; the more bang I got, the better.
On this specific occasion, while I packed for my trip, Matt sat on the sofa stewing like a pot of bolognese. He loathed the fact that within a mere four hours I would be checking into a boutique hotel and spending the evening frolicking around Manhattan. Did I say frolicking? That’s definitely the wrong word. If history repeated itself, as it often did when I was in Manhattan for work meetings, I’d finish the night stumbling through the streets inebriated. I don’t want to give the wrong impression of my behavior when I visited Manhattan, but I usually got mortifyingly wasted. There’s nothing frolicky about narrowly avoiding being squashed by speeding taxi cabs trying to cross 8th Avenue in Chelsea.
“Why do you always go up the day before?” He asked from the sofa while I ran around packing my suitcase. I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious. If I know him, and I do, probably an equal share of both.
“Because I enjoy the city and have dinner plans with friends.” I answered while kissing him goodbye. Nothing more. Nothing less.
My flight was showing an on time departure, so I raced to the airport to have the gate agent assign me a better one. The travel department was notorious for booking us in middle seats all the way in the back of the airplane. Never in economy plus or first class. That annoyed the fuck out of me. Seriously, it never failed. Even if every upgraded seat was unoccupied I found myself sitting between two overweight passengers in row 28. The trick was getting to the airport before the flight started boarding and simply asking the gate agent for another seat. It worked every time. I know what you are thinking and you are correct: I am a spoiled brat and like Rosa Parks, the thought of sitting in the back of the bus angers me. But before you send me off to the pyre to do my best Joan of Arc impression, I am not saying that Rosa Parks was a spoiled brat. She was a brave women who fought for her freedoms and the right to sit wherever the hell she wanted—I on the other hand—just wanted a better seat.
Boarding was underway as I approached the gate. I slapped on a smile and approached the gate agent while he madly tapped at the keyboard, “Hey Rusty, have you assigned seats already?”
“No!” Refusing to look up he continued, “We will call you up when we do.”
“Is the flight full?” I politely asked. It was an important question when calculating my chances of an upgraded seat.
Silence. I took that as a yes and stepped out of the way banishing myself to a row of empty seats against the wall. As a standby traveler you learn pretty damn quick not to piss off the gate agent. I hate to admit it but they hold all the power and they know it. If you annoy them too much you’ll find yourself crushed in the last row among passengers who travel with garbage bags as luggage. You do not want that happening to you. Trust me. I’ve learned from personal experience that if you stalk, harass, or raise your voice to the gate agent while flying standby you’ll most likely find yourself with a dreadful seat, no seat, or even worse—having your free flying privileges suspended by management. And let’s face it, the only reason I sling cans of Sprite and pretzels around is for free airfare.
From my interaction with Rusty, I figured an upgraded seat was not in the cards for me that morning, and because I ran to the gate and ignored my stomach screaming at me for breakfast, I lost any chance of eating for the next few hours. A double whammy. When I arrived in Manhattan, the first thing I’d do was check into my fabulous boutique hotel; second was get something to eat.
“Joe Thomas?” He called over the loudspeaker. I walked up to the counter to collect my ticket avoiding eye contact with his distressing gap-toothe
d smile. An arduous task but one I prepared myself for. The blank slot wasn’t only a mere space separating his two front teeth, I could handle that, but an entire tooth missing in action. Gone. It went out for a gallon of milk and never came home.
I stared down at the piece of white paper in my hand, “22A? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yup. That’s all we got. Be glad it’s a window.” He smiled immensely making me flinch. Did he smile to make me uncomfortable? It worked. If I was missing a central incisor the last thing I would do was walk around grinning like I had won the Powerball. He continued, ”Maybe if you bring that hot husband around next time you’ll get a better seat.”
The idea that Rusty lusted after my husband made me want to heave up my gallbladder. I don’t mind men craving the pleasures of my husband but not if they can slide an entire chicken tender down their throat without unlocking their jaw. I grabbed the handle of my luggage and responded in an abusive tone, “Watch it, Rusty, or you’ll be missing more than just one tooth.” I flashed one final farewell smile as I walked passed him rubbing it in that I had the two things he didn’t: a hot husband and a mouth full of teeth.
After introducing myself to the flight attendant, I dragged my bags down the aisle to row 22 to take my seat and patiently await my lucky seat companion. There had been a few hotties standing around the gate area, so I daydreamed about one of them sitting beside me so that our hairy arms could sword fight for the duration of the flight. Sitting far enough back I was able to watch all the passengers walk down the aisle, take their seats, fight over a pocket of space for their carry-ons, and stand in the middle of the aisle blocking other passengers while trying to find a spot to place their jackets. Boarding an airplane should be easy: walk on, place your bag in the overhead bin, and sit down. There’s nothing else to it.
