Greetings, and welcome aboard Terminal Thrillness, a blog dedicated to serving up 3 things: Air host/ess adventures, saving money, and travel. Please spaz out as you find your seat and shove large items in our bins. Fasten your seat belt, put on your life vest, tell your boyfriend that the mean stewardess is making your shut off your cell phone and take a good look at where the exits are located. We hope that you enjoy the flight.
Two young businessmen sit in their suits on an airplane. They're in the same row, with the aisle between them. The aisle is not getting in the way of their buisnessmen's flight meeting, as they lean into the aisle, enthusiastically discussing business ideas, improvements, productivity... Their businessfaces a mere 4 inches away from each other's.
"--Absolutely! I'll call him about the proposal and we can work out the details."
"That would be excellent. And I'll rally everyone up on my end and put together a report to blow them out of the water!"
(Nobody else around them is talking.)
Just then, the businessmen are almost aware that the space between them is altered as a stewardess squeezes through and parks a beverage cart between them. As she pours cokes, business continues, with the men's faces meeting wherever they can in this new setup: around the cart and the stewardess, wherever there's a gap of negative space. As she leans forward to grab a cup, they get a few businesswords in behind her back. As she bends down to get the ice, a reassuring nod is passed over her head, as she reaches across for a napkin, the men share a businessknowing chuckle between her belly and the heavy metal cart.
On layovers, flight attendants sometimes hang out and share really entertaining stories. We meet up for drinks in the hotel bar, or go walk around town. There are a lot of surprising stories passed around and I have a growing collection in my journal. I hope to get many of them up on this blog. For now, here are just 2 little tastes. Both of these was told by the flight attendant who had witnessed it.
1. A man who apparently thought the cabin lighting was too bright found the ideal position for him to get his sleepytime. The flight attendant who told this story produced a photo of him in this position and I've done my best to illustrate it in the image below:
zzzzzzz
2. Another FA told a story of being stopped by a woman sitting legs crossed on the ground in the middle of (/blocking) the aisle. "Just a second," she announced, annoyed. "I'm making a sandwich for my daughter." Bread was placed on the carpeted floor of the aircraft and she made a sandwich for her little girl.
An evening flight. Many empty seats. A woman with an emotional support pet sits near the back of the plane, nursing her infant. Once the baby falls asleep she begins nursing her dog.
I'm sitting in the window of the Starbucks that is a block away from the other Starbucks that is the original Starbucks. I've been trying to think of a way to get my stories up in a timely manner while still getting sleep and trying to write in a reasonably comprehensive style. I've never thought of myself as a very good writer, and because I think this way, it feels like work to me. I wonder if there's a good place to watch the sunset. I'll bet people watch it down the street on that grassy area where you can see the freeway and the piers. La la la...
There have been a slew of interesting things that have been getting backlogged due to my feelings of writing inadequacy. Now I have a great layover and nobody to meet up with and I've gotten to explore a bit, so I'm writing. Finally.
Here are a few exciting things that have happened.
So, when things go wrong, we flight attendants write reports. There's a common saying among stewies, and that is that a disdain for writing reports is one of the things that attracted us to the stewardess profession. But when bad things happen, we write reports about them. They are legally binding documents, so we've gotta be thorough and honest. When something malfunctions or when someone gets sick or hurt, we write reports. Another example would be if a passenger does something they're not supposed to (and a fa finds out about it). The airline or the FAA can decide to pursue legal action after your flight. Sometimes cops or medical personnel or both will be waiting when you land. Usually things aren't that bad.
In a specific incident that occurred a few weeks ago, the person who did something they weren't supposed to do on my flight was actually employed by the FAA. (Federal Aviation Administration--They're the ones who make all the regulations that people and airlines love to/have to follow). So, on my airplane, mister FAA was TRYING to use his powers for evil. Long story short, he was sneaky trying to steal drinks. He was caught twice. At one point, I gave him a stern talking to which included me saying something along the lines of, get this...
"Look, here. You may work for the FAA, but you have NO IDEA what goes on in an airplane!" (With a stern hand gripping his 30-something, tall FAA manshoulder.)
Followed by an apology from him, and promises not to do it again. I responded with something to the extent of, "If you do try ANYTHING again, this will be escalated and you will be speaking with law when you get off this plane."
*Let my interrupt this story that illustrates how totally kick-ass awesome I am to mention some of the really stupid shit I've done so far on this job.*
I talked shit RIGHT BEHIND a passenger's back and had to backpedal/kiss his butt (in this case, that meant convincing him that I was only talking about him because I thought he was totally attractive and pouring free drinks down his gullet) to make up for it.
I opened an overhead bin to and dropped a small item (headphones) on the head of a sleeping man holding a sleeping infant, who immediately woke up startled. Luckily, it only bounced off his head and didn't hit the baby in his soft spot, or whatever. Anyway, I did this TWICE on one flight. Whoops! There it is!
Spilled numerous drinks on the khaki and denim crotches of passengers (mostly men) and the white cotton sleeves of others (mostly women). It's kind of funny when someone asks for a glass of milk (ew) and it gets spilled on black pants. I haven't spilled a whole drink (yet--knock, knock). Just a little drip here and there.
Farted in the galley on the last day of a 4-day trip. The pressure up there causes bloating and it's not too unusual for flight attendants to do this. The galley is where we flight attendants mostly hang out when nothing else is going on, so usually we leave the galley to distribute it throughout the cabin in a process referred to as "crop dusting." Sometimes I will let a little one out in the galley if people are entering and exiting the restroom (which is right next to the galley) and I feel that the other people in the galley will think the smell is coming from the person exiting the lavatory, and that the person in the lavatory will think it's someone in line for the bathroom. I'm certain I've never been seriously suspected. But in this particular instance there was nobody else in the galley except me and I thought I had at least another minute before the other flight attendant (who was cool, but we hadn't totally clicked BFF style) came out of the lavatory, so I popped out a super tiny one. BUT!!! It turned out super potent (which is totally uncharacteristic of me). Suddenly, she came out of the lavatory (early--can you believe it?) before I could waft it away. I didn't look directly at her and instead looked down the cabin toward the front of the plane with a far-away, totally not-suspicious expression. Unfortunately, everyone knows that this is actually the MOST suspicious thing a fartmaker can do. Through the corner of my eye I could see she was looking in my direction, though her face was a blur. Still, I could tell that her face did not look normal. There was a frown, and a crinkled nose, as well. I had been found out and I had to decide on my last day working with this girl in possibly forever, how I was going to deal with it. I guess this is actually another story of how awesome I am, because after a moment, I turned to her and said. "I'm sorry. It was me." She, being a lady and a true stewardess of course pretended that I didn't know WHAT, I was talking about, so I embarrassingly explained. Then we had a good laugh, finally bonding on our last leg of a long 4-day trip together.
To say that I've been terribly busy would be a lie. I've had almost 20 days off in a row and not much to do but sleep in (classsssy).
Truth is, I've just been putting off writing because, though I feel like I have some good stories to tell, A: I don't think I'm a good writer, so I have about a bazillion stories that could be REALLY great, but are written like a 3rd grader, and B: Actually, "A." pretty much sums it up.
So my goal is to just post something every week--even if it's just a basic outline of what happened. If I feel inclined to fill in more details eventually, I will. Feel free to ask questions in comments if you have any. It's kind of just important that I document this shit SOMEHOW. Thanks to friends for helpful suggestions.
Also, I'll probably be moving this onto my kegelkater.com blog, just because there's really no reason for me to keep 2 blogs, when one is overwhelming me. I will send out a little note when I do that.
I had my first medical today. It's kind of a rite of passage for a stewardess. You just know something totally fucked is going to happen at some point.
This is what happened today during my flight. (Note the foreshadowing events and my totally jinxing thoughts leading up to it. When flying with other crews, if I had mentioned that I had never had an emergency before, they'd quickly tell me to shut my mouth, since I would cause one to happen. Now I, too, am going to be a little superstitious.)
Event 1: As I walked through the cabin, saw a woman about to change her baby's diapers on the seat, and mentioned to her that (woah, there!) we had changing tables in the bathroom for her to use (helpful/maternal/understanding smile).
What I was thinking: Ew. Baby gross. No poo on the seats.
Event 2: A woman came to the back galley and mentioned to me and the other fa how on her last flight was so cool and confident when faced with a medical emergency.
What I thought: Hmmm, no medical emergencies for me yet. I wonder when I will have one...
Event 3: A man came to the back galley, said that he had "taken some morphine earlier" and needed some oxygen. It was sketchy, but we're not doctors so we gave him some.
What I thought: Wow, I'm officially using medical equipment for the first time. But it doesn't feel like a REAL medical emergency.
---
Suddenly, a woman ran into the galley, panicking, "THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH MY HUSBAND. HE NEEDS A DOCTOR!"
While one FA rushed to the man's side, I frantically flipped though my announcement book to make the "is-there-a-doctor-on-board" announcement (calmly, of course). But I didn't need to. There was a heart surgeon in 14C, the seat RIGHT BEHIND the sick man.
As soon as the doctor saw the man's face in 13C, he said that we needed to land immediately. Much to the dismay of his onlooking wife and young (4-6ish y/o) children, he was sitting lifelessly in his seat with his eyes rolled back into his head. He was foaming at the mouth and making a low gurgling noise. He did not look good.
As the wife cried, and the doctor's wife tried to comfort and distract the kids, I took out another oxygen bottle, and another FA handed the Emergency Medical Kit to the doctor. Other people in the seat were relocated so we could lay the man down across the three seats. It was discovered that the man had also lost control of his bowels, so people were open to moving elsewhere.
After he was allowed to lie flat and oxygen was administered, the man began to come around. I was able to get details from the man's wife and fill out a report to give to the captain, who would call medical on the ground and determine where we needed to divert the plane. The man started looking better. It appeared that he'd had a severe seizure, but it looked like he would be okay now. One of the saddest moments I saw was when he was lucid enough to realize and be mortified by the fact that he had messed himself.
We were coming up on Denver, where we would have had to divert to, but the man was getting better. Monitoring his vital signs, on the advice of the doctor on board and the doctors on the ground, we decided we could make it to our destination, which was 2 hours away. If anything changed in his condition--if he began to feel pain, or have slurred speech we would take the plane down immediately. I forgot to mention that while the doctor was monitoring him, he was standing in the aisle, so we had the front half of the plane using the first class bathroom. And we had a very famous celebrity on the flight. People were coming back to their seats and not knowing whether to hypothesize about the medical situation or talk about the actor. People were generally curious, but very calm. I handed out airsick bags filled with coffee grounds for people to smell, since the plane reeked like a giant diaper. I was actually taking breaks in the lavatories to get some fresh air.
So, when I say I saved a guy's life yesterday, it was definitely a team effort. And I hope I'm not jinxing it (as I feel I kind of did on yesterdays flight) when I say that I am glad that I didn't have to use the defibrillator--but I would know what to do if I did have to use it. The way I helped save this guy's life was mostly by just juggling oxygen bottles, assisting the doctor, comforting the wife and other passengers (the kids were too fine. It was as if they were just in denial or trying not to admit to themselves that something terrible was happening. poor little guys) and communicating with the captain in case we needed to divert. It was definitely a team effort. Many guests commended us on our composure and efficiency in dealing with the situation. When we landed, the EMTs came on and took him away. He was totally stable, mostly just embarrassed. His wife was smiling and thanking us. The airline will send the doctor a special thank you and an offering of free flight(s) or some other compensation.
And now a video I stole from the fb page of the Suval-Fletchers:
Woke up this morning in LA, going to bed tonight in New York. Awesome.
Met up in LA today with friends I know from SF. We found some French-ish place (The French Market?) and had some yummy brunch. The place had a very Vegas/Disneyland New Orleans Square feel to it. I liked it's style, and was with some of the most fun and interesting company. They even came and picked me up. What more could I ask for?
Before the flight, listening to some of the trips that my coworkers have gone on using their benefits. Some secretive, low-key south-of-France canal cruising, touring all over the place, and other amazing things. I can't wait until my debt is paid off and I can start really running around!
As I headed to the plane to do my pre-flight safety checks, I was warned by the gate agent of a couple who were bringing two pets on board who "seem like they might be really needy" on the flight. Boarding happened, we took off, and I totally forgot about the "needy" folks. The flight was full of absolute angels. Not a lot of turbulence. Good, good!
I am flying with this one girl, Michelle. She is so cute. She's under 25 and a Ford model. Adorable. (Everyone who flies has led other lives. My last trip was with J-Lo, Usher, and Pink's former Backup dancer and a Raiderette). One think I learned about Michelle is that we have a lot in common. Another thing I learned is that she is "obsessed!" with practically everything. The list so far: Sacha Baren Cohen, Zooey Deschanel, Alec Baldwin (ew ew ew), Captain E-O (I concur), quinoa. There are more, but I'm forgetting. Maybe I'll hear more tomorrow during our last day of flying and add them as comments. Anyway, she laughs when I try to be funny. She is super fun. I like her.
In the JFK hotel now. Not a long enough layover to hit the town, BUT I can crank the thermostat as high as I want, and there is a free breakfast tomorrow. CUSTOM OMELETTES!
Nightie Night,
K
P.S Here's a link I saw posted by Martha Stewardess (a great airline blog) of a link from another blog:
