Around the World in a Bad Mood! (14 page)

A
FTER LIVING IN
Greenwich Village for twelve months, Bitsy and I found a bigger, more comfortable apartment on the Upper West Side. It was a summer sublet and we had the place to ourselves until the leaseholder returned in the fall. He was an actor out on a national tour of some Broadway show. Things were going OK but Bitsy was getting tired of New York. One day she informed me that when the sublet was up in the fall she was going to move back to the Midwest.

“Moving back to the Midwest! What, are you nuts?”

“I'm over New York. Dragging my bag around on the subway, rushing to catch the Carey bus, paying outrageous rent for a dumpy apartment . . . present circumstances excluded. I mean for the rent we've paid over the years we could each have a home with a yard,” Bitsy said.

“Who wants a home with a yard? Then you'd have to mow the lawn and shovel the driveway.”

“I've made up my mind. I've been out here longer than you anyway. You'll see, one day you'll just wake up and want out!”

I tried to talk her out of it, but to no avail. She had, indeed, made up her mind and that was the end of it. We decided to have a fun summer, throw a few parties (the place had a big deck and a grill), invite some friends out from back home, and do all the New York things we had always intended to do, but never really got around to doing: the Circle Line boat tour, Ellis Island, Coney Island, the Bronx Zoo, and Le Cirque. We managed to do all of the above except for Le Cirque—we made it there, but only as far as the bathroom. Nonetheless we said it counted as having been there, so we could officially tell people we had been to Le Cirque. Of course, we still had to fly our trips and such, but we made a lot of time for having fun in the wonderful city of New York. Knowing that Bitsy, my longtime roommate and flying buddy, was leaving was not easy to digest. I felt a sense of impending doom and I knew my days were numbered. Soon I would have to find a new living situation and a new roommate . . . unthinkable! If I ended up living with someone who was a nine-to-fiver, they would be home every night and probably on the weekends. Too much togetherness, if you know what I mean. If I found another flight attendant, it would probably be a new hire who would be on reserve status, coming and going at all hours of the day and night. Most likely she/he wouldn't have any money and would probably screw me on the phone bill. I kept hoping there would be a last-minute change of heart on Bitsy's part, but when October rolled around Bitsy was gone. I decided to try finding my own apartment and living alone. This was a big adjustment, but I wasn't ready to leave the Big Apple yet. I began looking for places to live and trying to get the money together to prepare for the many costs associated with moving in Manhattan. After a long search I found a little studio on 102nd Street and West End. The apartment wasn't exactly great . . . I thought about jumping out the window a lot, but the place didn't have any windows. It did, however, have a dishwasher (a rarity in Manhattan, at least among my class). But I missed Bitsy and all the good times. I was depressed. My long-distance bill skyrocketed, and then I was even more depressed. To combat my depression I ran the dishwasher. It was comforting in a strange way. I also decided to get serious about my acting career. It was time to move forward!

I
WANT TO LET YOU
in on a little secret. Contrary to popular belief, flight attendants are not perfect. Most of us are pretty close to it, but occasionally we stray. I recently interviewed several flight attendants from different international airlines and asked them to confess to a wrongdoing. Here is a partial list:

I served a roll that fell on the floor.

I neglected to serve the chocolate-covered strawberries, and fed them to the flight attendants instead.

I told a passenger that she was going to make her connection when I knew damn well she wouldn't, just to get her off my back.

I've ignored passenger call lights . . . repeatedly.

I've served decaf coffee to the entire cabin instead of regular coffee, hoping they would all fall asleep.

I've walked down the aisle avoiding eye contact with passengers after the captain announced the flight had been canceled.

I ate the hard-boiled eggs off the Cobb salad in first class.

I told the first officer I would meet him for dinner and then never showed.

When we ran out of bottled water I refilled the bottle with tap water and served it.

I used my bare hands to put ice in the glasses.

I blocked off the back bathroom on a full 747 so that it would be available for crew only.

When a passenger asked me for a pillow I told him I would look and bring him one if I could find one, but never bothered to even look.

I went into the first-class coat closet, found the adorable man in 2B's jacket, and put a love note in his pocket. (He later called me.)

I took an empty wheelchair from another airline near our gates and “borrowed” it for one of our passengers who had been waiting twenty minutes for a chair and had to make a connection.

I inadvertently took home the passports of two unaccompanied minors from China and their return tickets home. Instead of calling the company and reporting my error, I called the place where the children were staying (with their grandparents) directly. They came over to my apartment the next day to retrieve them.

A passenger wrote a bad letter about a fellow crew member and asked me to turn it in to the complaint department; I promised I would and promptly ripped it up and threw it away.

I used my cell phone on the jumpseat in the back galley when we were not supposed to use them.

I forgot to arm both back doors on the 757 and realized it about an hour into the flight. I didn't say anything to anyone else and quietly armed them when no one was around.

I told a passenger it was my first trip when I had been flying for ten years.

O
NE OF THE THINGS
I've become very well acquainted with over the last sixteen years is trash. I've been picking it up, stowing it, looking through it for lost objects, smelling it, seeing it, trying to find space for it, and saying “thank you” when people give it to me (a very humbling experience). Before becoming a flight attendant I never gave it a thought. But now I regard it quite differently than the average person does. I've even become interested in it and think about it on my days away from the airplane. I've watched the New York Sanitation Department with envy because they have that big truck in which to dispose of the Big Apple's wretched refuse. I wish we had something like that on the plane! We do have a trash cart, but it is nowhere near the sophistication level of the New York Sanitation Department. I mean, that truck can smash all the garbage with a big machine so there is room for even more garbage. When
we
need to make room for more garbage on the plane, we have to use a paper plate or some other device and manually shove it down with our hands to create more space. Pretty gross, especially for a person like myself who has a germ phobia.

Most flight attendants who've been flying for any length of time have probably had the unique experience of looking through the garbage for a lost article. One day in the early stages of my career I walked into the galley to find a very senior flight attendant rooting through the garbage. Appalled, I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Looking for the glamour that is supposedly part of this job,” she replied bitterly. It was then that I realized how intimate my relationship with trash would someday be. I'm not alone with the trash, though. No, a great many flight attendants have shared their trash sentiments with me. We've had lengthy discussions on the subject. Some of the remarkable things we've found in the trash or things that have been given to us to kindly discard include:

Airsick bags

Diapers

False teeth

Eyeglasses

Panties

Paper cups full of used chewing tobacco (otherwise known as the Styrofoam spittoon)

Used condoms

Depends

We have also noticed that a person's rubbish can reveal a lot about his or her personality. Think about it: Flight attendants have the rare chance to not only notice what people throw away, but also the opportunity to observe the manner in which they throw it away. Here are some of the different personality types.

T
HE
U
TTER
S
LOB:
They are heedless and unthinking when it comes to trash. These are usually the same people who are under the mistaken impression that all the overhead bins belong to them. When we tell them it's time to turn off their laptops they think that they are exempt because they're above everyone else. They are completely self-absorbed. Who do they think is going to pick up that newspaper, dirty pile of Kleenex, soda can, candy wrapper, and all the other little unmentionables they leave behind? Do you think they live like that at home? And it's not as if we haven't provided them with an opportunity to get rid of their unwanted items. We flight attendants come through the cabin fifty times offering to collect the trash. In fact, we beg for garbage! “Can I take your trash? Please? Oh, please let me take that for you! It would really mean a great deal to me if you'd give me your garbage. . . . Thank you sooo much!” I have gone up and down the aisle twenty times asking for garbage, and yet when all the people have deplaned the place still looks like it has been hit by a cyclone. Whatever happened to the idea of leaving a place better than when you found it? Or at least as you found it. I mean when you sat down in that seat three hours ago you didn't find newspapers, ripped-up documents in the seat pocket, and empty soda cans at your feet. Now, if you think I'm exaggerating just talk to the people who clean the planes between flight segments. I'm sure they have tales to tell.

T
HE
T
RASH
S
NOB:
There is also a lot to be learned about people from the way they hand over their garbage. Some people give it to us as if they are the Queen of England and you are their humble servant. They can't look up from their reading material or be disturbed in any way with such a measly task as passing you their dirty tray. They completely ignore you and can't be bothered to pick up the tray from the table and pass it to you. No, you have to reach across two other passengers to get it and, of course, they can never say “thank you” because whatever the hell they're reading is simply too important to acknowledge your service.

T
HE
A
NAL
R
ETENTIVE:
Some people are very organized in presenting their trays to you. They take the time to put everything into a very neat, concise order. The other day I noticed someone who put all the flatware from his row into his empty tomato juice can. Very creative indeed, except that I had to remove it from the can in which it was wedged. Still, I appreciated his effort.

T
HE
I
MPATIENT
T
RASH
G
IVER
:
Some folks do not have the patience to politely wait for us to come and collect the trays. They don't want to have to stare at their dirty dishes, and because they just cannot wait, they put their trays on the floor. I understand this because I'm not a patient person myself. However, when flight attendants finally do come to collect the trays, please have the common courtesy to pick up the tray from the floor and hand it to the flight attendant. After all, when we served you we didn't serve you on the floor, did we? Thank you in advance for your kind cooperation.

T
HE
E
AGER
B
EAVER
:
Now, some people are so excited and eager to help out that they have their trash ready to go almost as soon as they've taken the last bite of that fine meal. Then they're smiling and waving that garbage at us from row seventeen, never mind that we are only at row ten. I guess they just want you to know that they're ready and waiting. We'll be there in a moment, Jethro.

T
HE
B
EFUDDLED
T
RAVELER
:
These poor folks are sort of baffled by the whole experience. They are not quite sure of how to get everything back onto the tray from which it came. They are aware that when it was presented to them it was in some sort of formation, but aye, how to return it to that formation . . . there's the rub! Instead of making an effort to do so, it's easier for this type of individual to just pile everything on top of the tray in a discombobulated fashion and quickly pass it to the flight attendant. Generally, they're very nervous, make little eye contact (probably out of embarrassment more than anything else), and sometimes their hands are shaking. They are usually the ones who spill the entire pile of food and trash onto the person sitting next to them and onto the floor.

T
HE
L
ATECOMER
:
I guess these people are just slow eaters. You walk by them over and over and over again and they are still playing around with their peas or their cereal or whatever slop you just served them. The amount of food they have in front of them never seems to diminish. Although they appear to be finished, when you inquire as to whether you might take their trays out of the way for them, they just smile and say, “Oh no, I am still working on it.” What I want to know is, what is it they're working on? They're certainly not working on eating it. Are they watching the effects of the altitude on freeze-dried food? Are they performing some sort of scientific experiment? Eventually they'll either summon the flight attendant or get up out of their seats and bring the trays to the galley themselves. This is usually right before landing when everything is put away and then you have to find someplace to shove the tray at the last minute. One time I had a man who refused to give up his food and we were about to land.

“Sir, I'm sorry, but I really have to take that now.”

“But I'm not finished.”

“Well, it's an FAA rule. I really need to take it.”

“OK. Then can I take it to go?”

“Sure you can take it to go,” I said, and without missing a beat, I picked up his tray in my left hand and grabbed an airsick bag with my right hand. I then proceeded to dump the leftovers into the bag and politely gave it to him. “Here, sir, is your doggie bag. Now fasten your seat belt, we're about to land!”