Flying with the Rich and Famous: True Stories from the Flight Attendant who flew with them (13 page)

These guys had me rolling, continuously. Then they gave myself and the two pilots tickets to the second show, I would have not missed it for all the green tea in China. This man and his entourage are the most unbelievable comic genius ever. I am convinced this was the wittiest man I have ever flown. And way underrated for his mental brilliance.

MORNING NEWSCASTER LOS ANGELES

This gal came on board just as real as could be, just like you would expect after watching her on television. She’s exceptionally gorgeous with an awesome and quick personality and I liked her immediately. She was wearing four-inch platform high heels that, although adorable, looked painful. We had a short forty-five-minute flight and I only served her a cup of coffee. When we arrived I told her to be careful exiting the airplane because the stairs would be slippery and she was wearing those giant shoes.

When she got to the bottom stair: she fell, landed on her side, looked up at me, winked, laughed, then jumped in the waiting limousine, and shut the door.

While watching her show the Monday after the weekend I flew with her, she was talking about how great flying on a private jet is and then referred to me as a “ditz.” Thanks for that!

GUESS WHO

We had one incredibly wealthy and famous celebrity on Regent Air who loved champagne. After draining a few glasses, she became impatient for a refill and moseyed up to the bar to procure some more of the exquisite bubbly. The food and beverage flight attendant began to open a new bottle of champagne for this well-known woman. As he started to tear at the foil, our illustrious lady began to stroke the neck of the bottle in an erotic fashion, over and over again. No words were spoken between them, just he unwrapping and her stroking.

Then the cork “popped,” she looked at him and said,
“I’m done” and released her grip on the bottle to await the tasting of the nectar.

CELIBRITY RE-HAB

Yes, I have flown a couple celebrities to rehabilitation centers. I would never put their names in print as I believe we all need a little help now and then, they should be applauded –not exploited.

THE GOLFERS

Many of my rich and famous clients enjoy the game of golf. I have flown with golf professionals around the circuit of tournaments. I have flown with golf fanatics to the legendary courses where they couldn’t wait to get off the plane. I have done Midwest golf tours where the courses were literally located in the middle of nowhere and we were lucky to find a crappy motel. I had such serious golf enthusiasts that they wore their golf shoes on the plane.

I’ve been to St. Andrews in Scotland, and to its closest
replica in Coos Bay, Oregon, more than once, more than I can count. I’ve been to the Masters several times. The Masters is the first of four major golf championships played every year on the same course. The Masters is most famously known (other than the difficulty of the course) for the players’ green jackets, which were originally intended to differentiate the players from the patrons. It’s also known for being held on the second Sunday in April, which sometimes lands on Easter Sunday. It is located in Augusta, Georgia, and it is a beautiful area, very green and lush. There are tons of weeping willows and other “bent” trees with every shade of green on the planet, everywhere you look.

One of my layovers in Augusta, I stayed in the most authentic Bed and Breakfast Inn. This B&B was one of my favorites of all the bizarre places I have slept around the world. It had a four-post bed four feet off the floor, complete with mosquito net and squeaky mattress. There was an inviting fireplace hearth with a settee for afternoon tea, and the tiniest, yet cutest bathroom. Beyond the charming French doors, was an
alluring balcony where you could watch the activity on the street below or just enjoy the greenery surrounding you. It was as if you were plucked out of this century and placed back in time a hundred years ago in an old classic story. I adored that room and didn’t want to leave.

One time, I was called for a last minute charter to the Masters. Dispatch had booked us a room, but it was in this gross motel. As soon as we got to the parking lot, we all looked at each other and said, “Hmm, I’m thinking there is no way we are staying here.” We did get out of the car and looked in one of the rooms hoping maybe it would be tolerable, it wasn’t. We decided to find our own rooms. Just to give you an idea of how much of a draw the Masters is: we drove for hours and could not find a room. We finally ended up in South Carolina in one of our most beloved Marriott’s. Thank you, Marriott, you have saved my life many times around the world.

While on the subject of hotels, I’ll tell you that most of them were fabulous but some of them have been awful. On an
overnight in Dublin, Ireland for crew rest, my room was about as big as a trailer bathroom. The shower was actually over the toilet! Plus I’ve been to motels where I slept in my jeans and T-shirt rather than touch those sheets. I even showered in my flip-flops. I’ve also managed to live through at least six or eight hotel fire alarms and scrambled down stairs in the middle of the night with my favorite old, well-used Lakers T-shirt that was probably not the most appropriate attire. Not to mention, locking myself out of countless hotel rooms in that T-shirt.

One time I was in my room and went out on the balcony to enjoy the view. I shut the slider to keep the air-conditioned room cool. When I decided to go back into the room, I couldn’t open the slider. Okay. Wait a minute—I must have not pulled hard enough. I tried again and again. That door wasn’t budging. Are you kidding me? I am locked out of my own room on my own balcony? What the hell? What am I gonna do?

I was on the second floor, so I figured I could shimmy down over the side. I scrambled over the side, hanging by my
hands with the intention of jumping to the bushes below. Are you getting a visual on this? Uh, no can do. I would have broken an ankle, it was just too far and I had to fly the next day—flying being more important than broken ankle (stupid, eh?). Plus the rough concrete of the patio was digging into my fingers and palms. So I climbed back up and reassessed my situation.

It was noisy because I was close to a freeway, but I figured I could start screaming and someone was bound to hear me. I started screaming and yelling but no one heard me. Okay, I’ll have to jump. My hands hurt from hanging last time, but I didn’t have a choice, so over the side I went. The same thing happened. I knew if I let go, something had to break my fall and that something was going to be part of my body. I climbed back up and this time my hands really hurt. I did what girls do best: I started crying. That helped a lot.

Okay, reassess, I have to yell and scream louder. No one heard me, there was no one around. Now I am starting to pace and cry and freak out, I’d been locked out for over an hour, and it
was getting dark. Then out of my peripheral vision, I noticed some smoke coming from far off to the right. Aha! Someone is smoking on their balcony! I have never yelled louder in my life. I reached octaves of screaming I didn’t know I had in me. Then a guy leaned over the side of his balcony. I tried to yell to him that I was locked out, but he couldn’t hear me. I finally just shrieked, “Help” I guess that got through to him because ten minutes later some hotel employee showed up beneath my balcony and I frantically explained my situation. He broke out into laughter—which totally pissed me off. This was not funny. Another ten minutes went by and then to my great relief there was a maintenance man on the other side of my slider. In whole, I was outside for almost two hours. Does this kind of stuff happen to anybody else? Why do I feel like the Lone Ranger on this?

But back to the golfers. I had one famous professional golfer who was a blast to fly with. He always had a “squeezy” ball in his hand—you know the ones the golfers use to strengthen their forearms? I flew him several times and I never saw him
with out his squeezy ball. On the way home from Hawaii once, he told me “As soon as we get back, I am going to Europe.”
Ok that’s’ nice
, I thought and then he continued, “I have to get lamb placenta injected into my neck!” Apparently, lamb placenta is the fountain of youth and/or improves your golf game. Now you all know the secret!

I wish I would have paid more attention to the golfers than I did. I never really knew who they were, other than golfers, pathetic—I know.

HOLIDAYS

I love holidays. It’s a delightful diversion from the everyday flying the rich and famous on a private jet. Well – just like you and your career, after a while it becomes monotonous.

For instance: Halloween, I love Halloween! I used to play scary music, put dry ice in their drinks - I even wore a giant witch hat. And one
must
decorate for Halloween. I put spider webs all over with little spiders clinging to them. The passengers loved it, but not more than I.

Easter one year, I had a family with little children. I decided to make a scavenger hunt for the kids with a chocolate bunny at the end. It was a long flight and when you have little children, they get bored! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played “Go Fish”. The scavenger hunt was a blast, however, chocolate bunnies on a forty million dollar private jet - not my best idea.

Christmas is the easiest. I would put a tiny live Christmas tree on the credenza instead of flowers, with little presents underneath. It would make the cabin smell delightful. I put Christmas carols on for boarding music and on the bulkhead, I had put up little stockings with the passengers names written on them. I bribed the pilots to wear Santa hats with my fresh baked cookies, And an apple pie in the oven never hurt.

Hawaii was always fun too. I always made Mai-Tai’s with Hawaiian boarding music playing. On the return, I would have lei’s for the women and coconut shell beads for the men. I have been to Hawaii countless times - go ahead you’re allowed
to be envious! Even Veterans Day, I would put little American flag tooth picks in the passenger’s sandwiches if I knew they were veterans.

One thing you must keep in mind: you have to know your passengers ethnicity. If you get that wrong, you’re going to have a miserable trip. If you don’t know, you don’t do anything!

Every day of your life, you can choose to make it fun or not. I always chose to make it fun when I was flying. I mean, I was on a private jet, what did I have to complain about?

Chapter 5: Another Day in Paradise

Exciting Layovers

There’s great diversity among pilots and attendants. Some are young and full of energy; some are old and not overly enthusiastic. In the aviation industry there are folks we call slam clickers. Slam clickers are pilots and/or flight attendants who “slam the door and click the lock”, meaning they don’t want to do anything with you on a layover. In the case of a slam-clicker, you may never see them at all during a layover until “checked out and ready to go” for the next flight. Or the opposite may happen, if they aren’t slam clickers, then you may not be able to shake them the entire time. You could also have any mixture in between someone who wants to go and do anything and someone who wants to stay in the hotel the entire layover.

Our flights were usually long, so you’d have time for a conversation or two, or eighteen. Generally, by the end of the
that leg, you knew what everyone may or may not want to do while on layover. If you’ve been flying with the same pilots a lot, you also know that their wife serves meatloaf on Thursdays or that the bougainvillea won’t grow on the south side of their house. You know if they eat breakfast or not, if they work out or not, if they are drinkers or not, if they are early birds or night owls. You get the picture.

One thing they all have in common is they get tired of sitting in those seats for hours and hours. Many of them have bad backs too, so I learned to perfect the “elbow” back rub. I can usually rub out those sore spots until they scream. The other thing we all have in common is the love of aviation.

When traveling with a familiar crew, we usually came up with something to go looking for in each layover. One crew I flew with always went searching for the best chicken wings. Another crew was looking for the perfect key lime pie. It’s fun to rate them and continue the search for a better one. It gave us something to look forward to, especially if we were going to a
city we’d been to several times, we’d expand our search.

During layovers, we have gone to famous places like the Great Pyramids and Mt. Rushmore - these types of places are always first on the list of things to do while on layover. We also visited museums. I have been to some amazing museums. I have toured the Smithsonian at least a dozen times and still haven’t seen all of it—I can never get the pilots out of the aviation exhibit! Go figure.

Zoos: this one’s usually a crew pleaser, especially the one we went to in Sydney, Australia for obvious reasons. Tours: especially wineries and breweries, another crew pleaser. Movies are usually at the bottom of the list, normally when we’re bored. Shopping: most of the pilots don’t want to go unless it’s their wife’s birthday and they need help, although many have gone with me to bazaar-type places.

Plays or the theatre are fun, especially if the chief passenger has given us tickets, which were usually excellent seats. Bowling: only if we were utterly bored out of our minds.
Air shows: jackpot! Horse, car, and dog races: depends on how convenient and whether or not we’re “connected.” Jet skiing, water skiing, surfing, wind surfing: any of these are winners. Rollerblading, hiking, mountain biking, touring on foot: again, all winners. Golf tournaments: great but tricky because we’re usually leaving the day of the event. Snow skiing: my personal favorite, but hard to get anybody to go with me. Fine dining: one has to eat.

And finally, red light districts: There are some hosts who can’t wait to show you around—all around. We were in Saipan once, and they took us to the most outrageous show. The girls were really young, and I learned they were working to send money back to their families. It was appalling to say the least, but it was
quite
a show. A much better choice on Saipan: the best waterslide ever!