Fasten Your Seat Belts and Eat Your Fucking Nuts

by Joe Thomas

  “I really don’t care. Joe, he’s terrible. You know that. He can’t make a decision and won’t take responsibility. I’m done dealing with his crazy-ass nonsense.”

  I loved Wendy and not because she was absolutely right. Keegan made me nervous. He probably made everyone he worked with nervous. You never want to work with a flight attendant who makes you nervous. And I don’t mean nervous like he’d steal your laptop from inside your laptop bag while you were in the lavatory or rape you in your hotel room on a layover, but nervous like standing in the galley crying and praying to Jesus while the airplane sunk to the bottom of Lake Erie. That kind of nervous. Not the nervous you want to deal with when working on an airplane. Working with competent individuals—who are not afraid to make important, quick decisions—are the only flight attendants you want to work with. You’d think that was the only type of people the airlines hired but as you can see, in the case of Keegan and so many more, some nuts fall through the cracks.

  With Wendy hunkering down in the back of the airplane and Keegan shuffling around up front, I was positive we could manage through our five hour flight without her pulling out the rest of his hair. To be sure, I asked her if she’d be able to work with him without killing him. She gave me a cool, “Sure. I don’t really give a fuck about him anymore.”

  That was all fine and dandy but I’d need something a little more solid to go on before feeling comfortable. My main concern was that if there was an emergency situation on the airplane, would they be able to work together as a team? “Are you guys going to be okay if we have an emergency? That’s all I care about.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m cool with him as long as it’s work related. But he better not come back here acting like everything is normal because it ain’t.”

  That was fine with me. Being friends or even liking the person you are working with is not a requirement as a flight attendant. Like I’ve said before: I barely like anyone I work with. As a minimum requirement, you need to set aside your differences during an emergency situation and work together for the safety of everyone on the airplane. My gut instinct told me that Wendy was telling me the truth. She wasn’t going to lose her job over someone like Keegan. That was a fact. I hated the idea of getting involved but my parental instincts kicked in. After our service was completed and most of the passengers were asleep, I made my way to the front of the aircraft to talk with Keegan. As I approached the front galley I noticed he was slouched down in his jumpseat reading his book. Was he crying? Jesus Christ, I hoped not.

  “You alright?” I pulled down the jump seat and sat beside him.

  “I am fine, Joe. I have no problems with her. She verbally attacked me and told me I was a horrible flight attendant. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Well, yelling at each other in front of passengers is probably not the best thing to do.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” There was an awkward pause. I debated whether to get up and stand in the galley but he continued, “Do you think I’m a bad flight attendant?”

  Motherfucker! Why did he have to go and ask me such a loaded question? I went from innocent bystander to finding myself in the hot seat. A seat so fucking hot the hairs on my ass were starting to smoke like bacon. This altercation had nothing to do with me but here I was smack dab in the middle like the participant in an unwanted threesome. Which is any threesome you participate in when you really just want to fuck the hot person in the relationship but they came as a bundle. It’s like only wanting basic cable but those greedy assholes make you get HBO too. I deserved this for sticking my nose in their business. If there was ever a next time, I’d find myself taking a break in the lavatory while they beat each other down with fire extinguishers. I wanted to be truthful so I prepared myself for the backlash that came with telling him the truth. Could he handle the truth? I doubted it. He was no Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men.

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that when faced with a circumstance like this, it’s important to choose your words wisely. I took a long deep breath promising myself to start meditating the moment we landed, “Do I think you are a bad flight attendant? No. Do I think you shouldn’t work the lead flight attendant position? Yes.”

  Holy shit. Where did that come from? An answer like that deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. If not that then at least a standing ovation. I hate boosting my already overinflated ego but I am what you’d call a talented motherfucker. He stared at me without saying a word. Even with such a fantastic response I had no idea what to expect. Keegan was emotionally unstable and that’s a lot coming from a guy like me. I’ve been known to cry while listening to Lionel Richie.

  I was confident in my response. It was award worthy and truthful. I’ve worked with hundreds of flight attendants and as shocking as it may sound, he wasn’t the worst. He was far from the best. Alright, he was pretty fucking bad but the longer he stayed silent the more I prepared for the eruption.

  There was no outburst so I continued, “I think you need more confidence making decisions. What are you afraid of?”

  Another pause and then he answered, “I don’t want to get in trouble.”

  “From?”

  “The airline. They’ll fire me if I make the wrong decision.”

  It took him long enough, but his fears finally came out after I peeled his emotions back like the skin on an onion. Or a big fat uncut Mexican dick, whichever you prefer. I’ll go with the latter. All I know is that they can both bring you to tears.

  We’ve all been there, right? Not being face-to-face with an uncut Mexican dick—that only happens to the lucky few—but having fear about management waiting for you to make one mistake so they can terminate you. I was the same way. I worried myself drunk frightened that I’d make a mistake and lose my job. Forget to bring a bottle of water to a passenger? Terminated. Call in sick with Ebola? Terminated. Accidently ask a lesbian passenger, “What would you like to drink, sir?” You guessed it, terminated. If that’s not bad enough, then you find yourself added to a anti-lesbian email group that you didn’t want to join because-you actually love lesbians-but are easily confused by their Justin Bieber haircuts. That’s how fearful I was about airline big brother watching over me. After spending years on the Standards Advisory Team I woke up one morning while on a Tampa layover and stopped giving a damn. I made a commitment to myself to always do my job to the best of my ability. I also decided never to waste one more second of my valuable time worrying about being terminated. Especially when it came to being a flight attendant. Let’s be real: I serve nuts and sodas, I don’t work at NASA figuring out how to get people to Mars.

  I had to break it down in a fluffy way. I knew exactly what to say. “This is what I do, “ I said, trying to relax him, “I always make the best decision with the information that I have at that exact moment. I may find out later that it wasn’t the best thing to do but at least I followed through on it. Does that make sense?”

  He nodded, “Yes, it does. Will she talk to me? I still don’t even know why she is so upset with me.

  “Let me go back and ask her. I also need to make sure that if there’s an emergency you guys can work together.”

  “Joe,” he was obviously offended, “of course. I do my job. I’m not a bad flight attendant.”

  I took my time collecting trash through the airplane. I wasted as much time as possible walking through the airplane figuring out what to say to Wendy. Most of the passengers were asleep so I took the occasional empty plastic cup and spent the rest of the time crotch shopping all the guys.

  Wendy was perusing her magazine when I walked into the back galley. When I stepped into view she closed her copy of Glamour and asked, “What’s he got to say?”

  Stuffing the almost empty garbage bag in the trash bin I delicately answered, “He doesn’t think he’s a bad flight attendant and he’d like to talk to you.”

  Without making eye contact she reached into her bag, pulled out another magazine, and with a bitter tone responded, “I have nothing to
say to him. He’s crazy and when we land I’m deleting him off Facebook.”

  I bowed my head and sat down in the jumpseat. My duties as inflight mediator were over. Why did I even care about these two? I disliked Keegan and I only met Wendy a few days prior. There was also the possibility of never seeing the two of them again. If they could keep from verbally attacking each other until the end of this flight, I’d consider it a victory.

  While I sat there in my jumpseat I thought of the time I flew with Carol and Amber. I remembered struggling with why Carol disliked me so much but Amber didn’t spend a waking second trying to bring us together. Amber handled our situation matter-of-factly by walking up to the front galley and simply stating, “She just doesn’t like you,” That was it. No drama. No further questions. No answers. Sometimes people like you, and sometimes they don’t.

  Inflight Boyfriends

  The first time I heard the term inflight boyfriend, or IFB, was on the television horror reality show Fly Girls, which aired on The CW for eight episodes in 2010. I don’t know if you could call it a true horror show, but it was gruesome to watch, gave me nightmares, and sent me to the urgent care for a penicillin shot each time one of these flight attendants looked at a male passenger. A better title might have been, American Horror Story: Fly Girls. If they had slapped that title on it and put it on FX, it might still be on the air. At least with that information viewers could prepare themselves for the mid-air collision disaster taking place each episode. Who wouldn’t want to watch Jessica Lange taking it up the ass from a group of drunk and horny businessmen in Palm Springs on a short 10 hour layover?

  I do not speak from experience. I never hook up with anyone unless I have at least 15 hours to recover. I’m no Jessica Lange.

  You are probably blind from watching Fly Girls and someone is reading this to you. I feel your pain; watching the entire season of Fly Girls stole four hours of our lives that we will never get back. That’s if you managed to get through the entire short season. If you did, I am sorry for you. In all honestly, reading this book will probably steal more time than that. My apologies. Fly Girls should have been aborted quicker than a teenage pregnancy. I imagine the cast was not only terminated from the television show but had their wings ripped off their designer uniforms and were shamed into selling their bodies on Hollywood Blvd—better yet, making super roast beef sandwiches at Arby’s. Either made me happy.

  There was never an episode that didn’t start with them boarding the airplane, standing in the aisle—may I add not helping ugly passengers with bags—and working the male businessmen like sharks to chum in the ocean, “Hey Britney. Did you see 3A?”

  “Yes. I did,” adjusting her silicon tits, “He is totally my IFB for this flight.”

  “No way,” pursing her collagen injected lips, “I saw him first. He’s mine.”

  They’d giggle, get phone numbers, go to hot tub parties on layovers, push up their tits every two minutes, and catch the worst case of vaginal herpes before they even departed the gate. Terrible flight attendants with a go get ‘em attitude. These fly girls acted like whores who carried around Zithromax in their overnight tote bag instead of face wash. Why bother washing your face when you spend your entire layover face down in a pillow?

  The show was so fake that I wanted to find each one of these flight attendants and the executive producers, and repeatedly run over them with the airport tug. I was anti-fly girls the moment I watched the first episode and found out they were all on reserve, based in San Francisco, had a high end crash pad in Los Angeles, and were all hot. Where were the fat girls? A flight attendant reality show without at least one fat girl is preposterous. It’s like Paula Deen baking sugar cookies without using the n-word. It’s not realistic. My airline could produce a television show on The Food Network called Fat Fly Girls and it would be a hit.

  The promo for the pilot episode of Fat Fly Girls:

  On this week’s episode of Fat Fly Girls: Holly stumbles through LAX hungover from her layover the night before, bulging out of her unflattering uniform, and destroying a Double Double from In & Out that she picked up before she got to the airport. Will she wipe off that cheese hanging from her double double chin before the first passenger boards? Watch and see this Friday night at 10:00 p.m.

  I get upset when it comes to false reality. I am way more interested in a television show about real flight attendants. I want to see their true struggles and how they cope. I’m evil like that. There’s nothing better than watching a full grown adult crying to their parents while broke on reserve, having their luggage stolen off the airplane mid-pairing, or trying to cram as many minis in their panties while walking past security trying not to sound like a box of empty wine bottles being carried down a flight of stairs. That takes skill. Only flight attendants with over 10 years of seniority can walk off an airplane with more liquor than they sold on a Las Vegas out and back. That’s my kind of real life drama. I want blood. I want tears. I want to watch a pretty blond flight attendant get her ass beat by the wife of the pilot who just finished landing his private jet in her lady hangar. That’s television.

  Once on a Cleveland to Seattle flight, I worked with a flight attendant named Cloris. As friendly as Cloris was, she carried around a sour look on her face that resembled an angry mugshot. I call this—mugshot face. Cloris wasn’t outright ugly but any leather handbag looks attractive with the right accessories. We will just say that she wasn’t winning any beauty contests. Although, rumor has it she won Miss Baltimore DMV in 1987 but I never investigated that claim any further. Cloris’ mugshot face resembled an unloved girlfriend on too much crack who got busted for her boyfriend’s drug smuggling. Think of Whitney Houston but much whiter, wilder hair, and without the voice of an angel. Cloris’ voice was more like sandpaper-sandpaper that smoked two packs a day. That kind of mugshot face and voice can make a fellow flight attendant call in fatigue from fear. Once you got over the mugshot, Cloris was entertaining. She was also a bit older than me and cursed a lot. That helped me see past her unpleasant features and loved her the moment we met in the crew lounge and she blasted out, “Why the fuck is our flight delayed?”

  Cloris was crass, loud, and reminded me of Irene. I wanted to share that information with her but refrained for fear of her ass raping me with the airplane emergency flashlight. Cloris was a New Yorker and their first instinct is to slam things into your asshole. It’s true. I have fucked a few New Yorkers and after those experiences, let’s just say that I never felt comfortable again bending over to tie my shoe in Greenwich Village. The airplane emergency flashlight is housed underneath our jump seats, and although I don’t mind sitting above that thick piece of plastic, I am certainly not prepared to have it enter me in a violent manner, especially right before a Seattle transcon. The only thing I like to put inside me before a transcon is coffee, not a big black flashlight. If you’ve never seen an airplane flashlight, they are big. Baby arm big. Black guy from Kenya big. If inserted into your rectum you’d walk with a cane for months, possibly years. Talk about explaining that on-the-job injury to your flight attendant supervisor. I don’t even like asking her for a pen.

  Gay male and straight female flight attendants cater to the hot guys on their flights. It’s just in our nature. Especially mine because I don’t get along with ugly people. Before you scream about being offended and want to verbally attack me on the airport shuttle bus, let me explain. It’s not that I don’t get along with ugly people, I just have nothing in common with an ugly person. How the hell am I expected to strike up a conversation with one? “How are you today, sir? Have you ever thought about having that mole removed? You know, like Madonna.”

  I agree that focusing our attention on all the attractive passengers on a flight makes us sound like a bunch of fly girls but there is a huge difference: most of our interactions with hot passengers don’t end with us on our knees in the Ft. Lauderdale Hilton parking lot. We aren't going to ignore you if you're unattractive, but you shouldn’t expec
t unlimited free drinks and extra nuts if you have missing teeth, a bad hair piece, or smell like vinegar.

  I hate when passengers smell like vinegar.

  Straight male flight attendants (there are more than you think) are just as bad. To Catch A Predator could do an entire episode on straight male flight attendants when a hot female passenger walks onto the airplane. Being of age isn’t a concern for these guys when it comes to flirting. A few years ago, I worked a flight from Chicago to Santo Domingo with this straight guy who refused to talk about anything but his inflight girlfriends. His name was Pablo and he actually refrained from using the term inflight girlfriends and just called them, “Pablo’s bitches.” It was romantic in a dirty pimp sort of way. He led me to believe he had enough bitches to star in a Snoop Dogg video. I felt bad for these girls because I doubt he paid well. On our way to Santo Domingo, we stood in the front galley discussing his “bitches” while I tried holding down my lunch. His behavior was appalling. Whenever a female passenger walked up to use the lavatory, which happened often, he completely ignored me and stalked the passenger like a hungry lion hunts a gazelle. He’d sniff the air like a bomb sniffing dog whenever a female passenger walked by. I figured he was smelling their vaginas, and because he was Puerto Rican-it made sense. Straight Puerto Rican men have the ability to smell the police, when their landlord is walking up the stairs to collect the rent check, and vaginas. If I had to guess, it’s a gift from God; probably more of an apology for making them so fucking lazy. I deduced that he could not only tell which female passengers were menstruating but which ones were ovulating so he knew who to stay away from.

  “Damn Joe! She’s hot. You want to give her my number?

  Looking embarrassed for him, “Uh. She’s 14 years old. I had to move her out of the exit row.”

  “Really? But she’s hot, bro.”