Fasten Your Seat Belts and Eat Your Fucking Nuts

by Joe Thomas

  “Nice to meet you ladies. My name is Joe.” I pulled out my cell phone to text Matt informing him I made the flight. I will be polite to anyone who is polite to me but I wasn’t looking to make a new friend, especially with Sandy. Loretta maybe, but that’s because I still had my heart set on some Southern fried foods from the back galley.

  Sandy immediately invaded my space. She leaned over and watched every word I typed into my cell phone. My first reaction was to type, ”the bag is onboard and activated,” but no need to involve the FBI on a silly prank just to scare the french fries out of Sandy. Now that I remember back, maybe she wasn’t invading my space as much as just sitting in her seat and leaking out into any additional open space.

  Sandy hounded me like a timeshare salesman the moment I slide my cell phone back into my front pocket. "What airline do you work for? Are you a pilot?”

  “No. I’m a flight attendant.”

  “That’s nice. A male flight attendant. I didn’t realize there were male flight attendants.” What the hell did that mean? If I didn’t know better I would have sworn Loretta was smirking. The flight attendants hadn’t yet begun their safety demonstration and I was ready to spend the next few hours sitting in the lavatory.

  “Why are you going to Omaha? Are you from Omaha?”

  “I’m going to a wedding in Iowa.” I patiently waited for her to ask about the bride and groom so I’d have the chance to end our conversation as fast as it started. I figured by spilling the details of the wedding and the fact about the participants honeymooning for a week in Sodom, she’d spend the rest of the flight with her head in the Burger King bag reciting Leviticus 20:13. For you heathens, that’s the kill-the-gays part of the bible.

  No luck. Sandy wasn’t interested in the wedding, she was just interested in interviewing me, “Where do you live?"

  “I live in California.”

  “I’ve never been to California. Do you need a ride from the airport?"

  Was she serious? I feared the invitation included a ride from inside her trunk. “No. I have a friend picking me up.” At that point I stopped looking at her. I focused on the big breasted flight attendant trying to fit the life vest over her helmet hairdo.

  Once the safety demonstration was done, the flight attendant made her way down the aisle. As she approached the row I pulled out my crew ID attempting to introduce myself, but she continued on without saying a word. Did she even see me? I couldn’t decide if it was her Texas-sized tits that kept her from making eye contact with me or just her Texas-sized bitchy attitude but I barely got a nod as she paraded by me with a painted on smile.

  I had hoped Sandy lost interest in me, but who was I kidding? "She didn't seem to notice you're here."

  Pulling a book out of my tote bag I placed it in the seatback pocket, "Yeah. I should have brought chocolates."

  Sandy snapped her head around while stuffing a fistfull of french fries in her mouth. The aroma from the crispy french fries made my stomach roar. She questioned, "You pay them in chocolate? I need your job."

  If I had chocolates I’d toss them at her to shut her up so I could read my book in peace. Loretta hadn’t made eye contact with me since our initial interaction and now I could understand why she wanted an empty seat between the two of them. I wanted to look over at her and remind her that my presence had saved her from hours of nonsense conversation but I didn’t want to ignite another discussion with Sandy.

  During the first 20 minutes of the flight Sandy was silent while attacking every morsel of food in her Burger King bag. The lull was luxurious and I greeted it like a long lost mute friend. I dove into the pages of my book and welcomed the only sound emanating from our row: the sound of Sandy gnawing her food like she had just been rescued from a deserted island. At one point, it reminded me of two cats feverishly licking each other clean. Her lips smacked together like two lesbians going at it in a Subaru. Although the moaning over her food annoyed the fuck out of me, anything was better than being interrogated by her relentless questions. Sadly, I wasn’t off the hook. Far from it. She took her oversized tongue, licked the last of the Hershey’s Sundae Pie off her plastic white spork, and went right back to me.

  Turning her entire body to the left, “Joe, are you married?”

  Hiding inside the cover of my book wasn’t an option. This is the one reason I hate flying in uniform. Whenever a pilot or flight attendant wears their uniform in public they are representing the airline that provides them with a weekly paycheck. It’s the curse of flying for free. The position I put myself in so I can carry on a large bottle of face wash without having to check a bag. It doesn’t matter if said pilot or flight attendant is at the grocery store, on the bus, or-in the case of my Omaha flight-sitting next to someone who wishes they were Katie Couric. We are the face of the airline and I am sure my employer frowned upon me telling Sandy to choke on a french fry.

  “Yes.” I didn’t take my eyes of my book. I am accustomed to behavior like that because it frequently happens to me when I am sitting on the jumpseat working with someone I either have nothing in common with or just don’t like. There is no better way to annoy me than attempting meaningless conversation when I am not giving off any vibes that I want to talk. If my face is deep in a book without making eye contact with you, I probably don’t want to spend the next four days hearing about your pet bird and gay husband.

  “That’s wonderful. I’m married too; so is Loretta.” Loretta looked over giving me a half-I don’t give a damn what you people are talking about-smile and went right back to her crossword puzzle. Loretta had all the power in the world to save me from this conversation but she still hated me for being the catalyst to our Sandy disaster. The bitch held a grudge. I didn’t blame her. It was my fault. Taking the seat between the two older ladies in the row behind us might have been the better choice, but I wanted to avoid the possibility of performing mouth-to-mouth on two stiff corpses somewhere over Nebraska. I figured sitting here made life easier. I took a gamble. I’m glad I don’t play the lottery. When I looked back and saw the two older ladies sound asleep, I regretted my decision. Sure, they were most likely dead, but at least they wouldn’t have talked my fucking ear off. I’d have managed sitting between their stiff corpses until one of them started to smell.

  I gave up all hope of reading my book. Sandy was an emotional terrorist who hijacked my personal space. As I prepared to conjure up some fake pleasantry, Sandy’s attention focused on another passenger sitting across from us. She began waving her hands in all directions and settled on a handkerchief wave. When her left hand breezed over my book I looked up to see her fluttering about in her seat trying to grab the attention of the gentlemen across the aisle from me.

  “Excuse me, Bill? Bill is that you? Hello. Bill!” She jumped up and down and Loretta looked back over at me. Any imagined friendliness that I felt from Loretta was officially gone. Especially after she dropped her pen due to Sandy’s eruptive behavior. It bounced off her knee and onto the floor never to be seen again.

  The passenger next to me ignored Sandy for as long as possible. A challenging task if I do say so myself. He finally sneered over the newspaper he had crinkled in his hand and turned his head to face us. I wanted to inform him that I had no idea who she was, and to welcome him into my living nightmare, but from his facial expression I gathered he didn’t care. When he made eye contact with her it, was an open invitation for her to invade his personal space with her existence. I put my book down. This interaction looked too good to pass up.

  "Bill? Bill!” She was yelling directly into my ear like her lips were a bullhorn. “It's me, Sandy. How are you?" I looked over at Bill to watch his reaction.

  Bill paused, looked at me, then to her, and coolly answered, "I don't know you." It happened that quick. Done. He went directly back to reading his newspaper. I smiled and went back to my book. If I had balls the size of Bill’s my conversations with Sandy could have ended before the airplane door closed.

  Sandy shrug
ged her shoulders, leaned towards me even further, and whispered, “He looked like Bill. If you knew Bill you’d think he looked like Bill, too.” She turned over to Loretta, “Do you know Bill from the fourth floor?”

  “He got fired three months ago.” Loretta responded and closed her eyes again. She might have been praying for the airplane to go down. I know I thought about it a few times.

  My hopes of her bumping into someone else she knew and leaving me alone were crushed.

  “What airline do you work for?”

  When I told her she looked up to the ceiling in deep thought. “I've never heard of that airline. Is it new?"

  Now she had my attention. "Really? You've never heard of us? I didn’t know that was possible.” Surprised and bewildered by her ignorance I sat there staring at her. We locked eyes which creeped me out. Only because she still looked hungry. I might understand if I was dressed in regular clothes but I had sat next to her for the past hour with the name of my airline blasted all over my flight attendant wings. Could she read? I didn’t care. If she didn’t know about my airline then she’d never be a passenger on one of my flights. That made me smile.

  "I guess I don't get out much. I'm just a good Nebraskan girl. Born and raised,” she put her hands up towards the ceiling, “thank you very much. I live for my husband, my beautiful kids, Jesus, and chocolate pie."

  “Honey,” I closed my book and placed it in the seat back pocket, “we all live for chocolate pie.”

  She laughed, “You are funny. You must make your wife laugh all the time.”

  The pilot’s voice broke up our conversation informing everyone that we were 20 minutes from landing at Eppley Airfield in Omaha. Perfect timing. Sandy took that as a trigger to put away her belongings; I took it as a desire to find out more about this quirky person. I spent the entire flight fighting off her questions, and against my better judgement, I was about to unleash on her what she had done to me, "Have you heard of California Air?"

  "Nope."

  "Just Jet Airlines?"

  "No," she smiled.

  Loretta looked over, “Oh come on girl, you never heard of Just Jet Airlines? I’ve even heard of them.”

  I was getting annoyed, "Quality Airways?"

  She looked at me like I was speaking a weird language created in the far off land of California.

  "Nope. I guess I don't know much. I just found out what an artichoke was. You gotta eat the meat off the leaf.” She shook her head and grimaced, “Some people even make a dip. Have you ever had an artichoke?

  Nodding my head slowly, "Yes."

  "Strangest thing, right? I've never seen anything so strange."

  “I have Sandy. I have.”

  Operation: Tomato Ass

  I always go that extra mile when providing customer service. Working in the customer service industry, whether you flip burgers, pour coffee, or fly people all over the country, it’s imperative you carry around a tattooed smile. At all times. As if your life depends on it. To simply be nice and helpful doesn't cut it anymore. In my industry, the traveling public are over-the-top demanding. People have lost their minds when it comes to their expectations. These airline passengers believe they have the right to be rude, critical, and disrespectful to their flight attendant all while expecting us to be gracious, even if the airplane is plummeting thousands of feet into the ocean. Thankfully, I have not experienced plummeting thousands of feet into the ocean. If I had, I’d be smiling the entire way down.

  The customer service gene is scientifically impossible to find, but I was born with it; kinda like Maybelline. What is the customer service gene? It’s the gene that gives one human being the ability to handle another human being—in a customer service setting—without literally beating the shit out of them. Losing one’s cool is a sure sign the individual who presents themselves as a born customer service person is a fraud. Don’t get me wrong, my buttons are pushed harder than an obese person through the terminal in a wheelchair, but I was born with the tools to look away, smile, and handle the situation without losing my composure.

  On a San Diego to Las Vegas flight I was walking through the aisle with my flashy white smile, working the customer service dance that has made me very popular with the ladies. I wish it made me popular with the gentlemen but I will take attention wherever I can get it. My customer service dance includes taking drink orders, smiling, flirting, and making passengers feel like they are in first class even when they are seated in the back of the airplane.

  I promise you if I was driving that bus, Rosa Parks wouldn’t have said shit.

  I approached this wiry white haired lady in 5C and before I could speak she said, “Can I ask you something?

  "Sure. What can I help you with?"

  “Is it true that we are only allowed two drinks per flight?”

  That was an odd question. I quickly surmised that at one time in her life she had been cut off during a flight for abusing alcohol, and most likely the flight attendants.

  I politely responded, "You can have more than two drinks," she immediately smiled, "but how many drinks you have, and when you are cut off, is up to me. "

  She accepted that response and nodded, "Fair enough. I'd like two Heineken and bring them out at the same time."

  When I got to 6C, who I’d learn right away was an apparent friend of the Heineken lady, it became obvious these two ladies were on a mission to enjoy themselves on this short flight. I grinned, “May I get you something to drink?”

  When she smirked, her meaty cheeks bulged up into large fleshy round balls. “I’d like a water and a bloody mary,” she pointed up to 5C, “You can put her drinks on my tab, too.”

  The passenger in 5C turned around, “Thank you, Desiree. That is so sweet.”

  I piped in, “Ooooooh. Are you ladies out to have some fun this weekend?”

  Desiree’s cheeks perked up again, “Yes we are. We got a three night deal at the Imperial Palace on the strip and it came with two free buffet tickets. I hear the hotel is super great.”

  Poor thing. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the Imperial Palace should have been condemned in the mid-1990’s. When I finished taking drink orders, I quickly brought out the two Heinekens and bloody mary to Desiree and her traveling companion.

  When I can—but sometimes it's impossible—I serve the passengers who paid for their drinks first. Yes, I understand that everyone on the airplane paid a lot of money for their airplane tickets but when you are shelling out an extra $5.00 for each drink, you deserve to get that drink fast. I will break it down further for you. When passengers pay for alcoholic drinks, and they usually order more than one, that's revenue for the airline. Revenue for the airline means job security for me. It might also mean extra crash in the pocket of your flight attendant. Some flight attendants are paid bonuses for their onboard sales. If they don't sell anything during the flight, they don't make any extra money. No extra money makes most flight attendants unhappy. So if you see your flight attendants bringing out alcoholic drinks before your free Coke, it's because they want these passengers to get nice and buzzed, order more drinks, maybe pass out a generous tip, and help the airline bank the cash so they get a nice bump in their profit sharing the following year.

  After delivering the alcoholic drinks to these two ladies I walked back to the front galley and started pouring Sprites, Diet Cokes, and whatever else the first few rows in my section ordered. A few minutes went by before I overheard a slight commotion in the cabin. I leaned sideways from my workspace to look down the aisle to check it out. Shit always happens on a short flight when everyone in your section orders a drink. It never fails.

  I was under attack! Runners in Spain have a better chance escaping a herd of bulls than I’d have escaping what was heading my way. Desiree galloped up the aisle towards me with a crazed look hanging off her jowl. The cup of ice in my hand dropped onto the counter and I braced myself for impact. What happened to her? Did she shart and blow out her tent-sized panties? Did s
he mistake her earbuds for tic tacs? Was she on fire? All these thoughts coursed through my brain as she raced full speed down the aisle. Perhaps she was on fire. I couldn’t see any smoke coming off her fleshy body but that didn’t comfort me. She was moving at stampede speed. If I did see flames, I’d be trampled over before I could do anything about it. And let me remind you, row five is not that far from the galley. This all happened within mere seconds.

  My first instinct was to reach for the Halon fire extinguisher and hose the bitch down. Stop her dead in her tracks. But with the mass of flesh hanging from her hips, the foam in that little red can stood no chance. Hitting her in the head might have worked but I simply wasn’t fast enough. She was on me faster than a closeted male Republican on a dick. When she finally came to a full stop in front of my jumpseat I realized she was not on fire.

  Relief. “What’s wrong?” I calmly asked as she pushed me aside and took up most of my galley space. She continued jumping up and down spitting out words that made no sense. After a few seconds of this erratic behavior, she pointed at her jeans and I finally understood what was causing Desiree to hop up and down like she was an extra in the show Stomp on Broadway. On her left pant leg, wrapped around her hefty thigh, was the largest red stain I'd ever seen. At first glance, it appeared as if her monthly visitor paid a surprise visit. A visit she—nor I—was prepared for.

  My imagination went wild. “What is that?”

  Breathing heavy she declared, “It’s tomato juice.”

  Awareness swept over me. Tomato juice? That was nothing. Then my mind started wandering with ridiculous ideas. Like it always does. What if another passenger smuggled a skunk on board the airplane? What if we were innocently flying to Las Vegas ignorant to the fact that Pepe Le Pew was hiding under a seat awaiting the perfect opportunity to squeeze his anal glands all over one of the passengers? And he found that person in Desiree. Not the jackpot you want to win. What if (there are a lot of what ifs in this wandering) after she mixed her vodka and spicy tomato juice, Pepe jumped onto her lap, and sprayed her down like a male cat marking his territory? And, like pouring condiments on her second Double-Double In & Out burger, she instinctively doused herself with tomato juice and ran from the scene?