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Adventures in Flight: A Day in the Life

After a long day at work you go home and what do you do? Cook dinner? Chat with your loved one or a neighbor? Throw a load of laundry in the washer? Take the dog for a walk? Maybe run to the store or work on a project in the garage.

    As a flight attendant, I don’t have the luxury of doing such things when I’m done with work. Half the time, I’m in another city; whisked away in a van to a hotel with a dozen sports channels on the TV and other various cable channels, all of which never live up to their name (Headline News rarely covers the headlines, Discovery Channel is full of things better left undiscovered and don’t get me started with MTV!). The workout rooms are small and the pools are often infested with children. For me, domestic projects have to wait until my days off and compete with all the other minutiae of things that need my attention; cleaning, errands, tasks, and, oh yeah, rest.

    There still seems to be an impression of glamour when telling others I’m a flight attendant. In many ways, I guess that’s still true. The hotels are deluxe retreats, the travel is wonderful – if you’re into travel, and one is exposed to a whole new world; one which is smaller than the one in which most people live. Breakfast in New York, lunch in Chicago, dinner in San Francisco; it’s no wonder it’s hard for me to keep track of time. I can be gone for 2 days and it feels like 5!

Aviation; an old propeller engine by PenguinScott

    Many people have no idea what really is involved in a typical day of a flight attendant. So I thought I’d open a little window into my world, which isn’t as easy as it might sound. Ours is a life full of Federal oversights, technicalities, legalities and union rules. I won’t bore you with the why’s of certain things, but feel free to ask if you would like to know more.

    First, a little background, one of the most annoying questions I get is what route I fly. Only the very senior can hold a route, and even then many don’t always fly the same trips. Each month we bid for our flying, and for most of us at my airline, we fly one month on reserve (on call) and the next month is a line month, which means we know exactly where we will be all month. We can trade and drop trips, thus we have much more control of our schedule. On reserve, I only know my days on and off and trading days is much more complex and often very difficult to do, as they are done so at the discretion of the crew desk, who need to ensure there are enough flight attendants to cover the ever changing needs of the flight schedules.

    For this typical day, I’ve chosen a reserve day. This when we have the most chance of experiencing problems, or as I like to say, having my trip go wonky. Things can change at the very last minute on reserve. You may think you’re going to do one leg to Denver and then fly home, but once in Denver, they may send you to Dallas for a layover and all of a sudden, you’re gone an extra night. That’s why I always keep my bag packed for as many days as I’m good to fly. Even if I go for a two-day trip, if I’m good to fly for 5 days, I pack for 5 days!

    Before going to bed, I look on line to see where I am on the list of reserves for the following day. This helps me gauge if I might get called for an early flight or a later one. I’m high on the list, so I go to bed at 2200hrs, which is very early for this night owl, who prefers red eye flights. (It helps with this job to use military time, so I’ll do so here as another way to show you what my life is like.)

    Sure enough, the crew desk calls at 0315 for a check in at 0835. I’m told I’m going to Philadelphia. After hanging up the phone, I now have to figure out what time to set my alarm. I have to leave my house an hour and 10 minutes before check-in and I usually allow an hour to wake, shower, print my paperwork for the trip and grab a bite to eat. After doing the math and checking it, I pray that I can get back to sleep. This is much more difficult than it seems. With a constantly changing schedule, my mind often thinks, ‘that was a good nap and now, let’s think about ‘all’ the stuff’!

    On the drive to work, I realize that I forgot to factor in that this is a Thursday and I hit rush hour traffic. Fortunately, it’s not too bad and I don’t have far to go in it; this is why I choose to live close to the airport. We are provided parking in a garage and a bus takes me to the terminal, which is why I must allow just over an hour to get to check-in even though I live 15 miles from work.

    Once past security, I squeeze past those who see the people mover as a ride and fail to keep to the right so those of us actually wishing to get somewhere soon can pass. I yell out, “Passing on the left and keep trudging through. Soon, I reach in-flight, our base of operations in the bowels of the airport terminal. I say hi to other flight attendants I recognize, never remembering their name or how it is exactly that I know them. Maybe it was a flight to Maui last year. Maybe it was a flight to Orlando last month. I have no idea, so I just say hi with a big smile and feign interest. I’m only really here because I have to check my mailbox and then log onto the computer to see what cyber info has been handed down from mother airline, in all her wisdom.

Passengers by PenguinScott

    After filling up the circular file, I find my room to brief with the flight attendants I’ll be working with. Those who are based with me in San Francisco (SFO) will be there. Sometimes we might fly with crewmembers from other bases; they will meet us at the plane. On this trip to Philadelphia, I’m assigned the purser position, which means I’m the lead flight attendant on the trip. I make the announcements, work first class and am responsible for briefing with the captain and relaying information to my crew. We are a crew of 3, flying an A320.

    Following the briefing, we emerge from the belly of the terminal and make our way to the gate. I brief with the customer service representative (CSR) and board the plane. Next is a busy time for me; stow my luggage, perform safety checks of equipment, brief with the captain, check galley provisions and start getting the galley ready to provide world-class pre-departure service to the wonderful people who occupy the first class seats, all while greeting the passengers with a smile, a few laughs and trying to look chipper as one can be at 0900hrs after getting 5 hours of sleep!

    Mr. Sir is upset that he’s not sitting with his wife and asks if I can help move people around. I know he’s already asked the CSR and been told the flight is full and he’ll have to ask people to move. I tell him the same thing; we are not allowed to move passengers. Tee-Shirt-Mom boards with her stroller, already tagged to be placed in the plane’s cargo hold, so I have to remind her to take it to the door so a baggage handler can stow it for her. People are shoving 2 and 3 bags in overhead bins sideways, so I have to make an announcement telling them not to do this. No one listens to our announcements, but I did my job. The bins fill up and there are still 20 people on the jet way with large roll aboard bags. I inform them there is no more room for bags and that they now have to check them, which really makes me a popular person. 2A , 2E and 3F all have jackets for me to hang. Mr. Got-an-upgrade-and-has-never-flown-in-first-class finds out he can have alcohol right now, and asks what I have. I ask what he likes as I have no intention of trying to name all of our drinks. I make his screwdriver, pour 2 red wines, and deliver 3 ice waters, a beer and 2 gin and tonics. The first officer wants a coffee with cream and sugar and the captain asks for a diet coke. The interphone rings and the flight attendant in the back tells me there are bags coming forward to be checked. I have overhead bins to close before we can close the door and 1F would like another glass of wine.

   Finally, the CSR hands me some paperwork, signaling that we are finished boarding and she closes the aircraft door. I make an announcement asking for all electronics to be turned off. About half the people actually do this, and most who don’t are in first class. I check with the pilots to make sure they have all they need and confirm that they want to eat their crew meal later in the flight and will call me when they are ready to eat. I make sure all passengers are seated and notify the pilots that we are ready to go.

    Now I start getting paid. You read that right. I am only paid flight time, which means once the brakes are released and until they are set again. It’s the same for pilots. This is why, so often, when we know there is a delay in taking off, that we push from the gate and go sit on the tarmac. We want to be earning money, and we can’t when sitting at the gate with the door open. Of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, I think it’s the hardest I’ve ever worked for free.

Wheel markings and chocks by PenguinScott

    As purser, I make another announcement welcoming the passengers and introduce the video safety demo. For planes with no video equipment or if it’s broken, I have to read it live, while the crew demonstrates the safety features. Following the demo, I check for customer compliance, secure the galley and take my seat in the jump seat for takeoff. This is where I go over my emergency commands in my head, just in case, as there are only two times you can evacuate a plane: before takeoff and after landing!

    The flight time to Philadelphia is over 5 hours, so there’s no hurry to the service today. It’s drinks with warm nuts from the oven, drink refills, hot towels, lunch, ice cream and 90 minutes later I might get a chance to sit down for a minute before the cockpit calls to come out to use the lavatory.

Since two people are required to be in the cockpit at all times, I now have a chance to escape the passengers for a few minutes up front. I cherish my time spent in the cockpit during flight and the opportunity to get a front-view of the terrain below. I look over the cockpit controls; 32,000 feet, wind from the west, coming up to Denver with aircraft at our two o’clock and four o’clock. The pilots like to ask where I live, where I’m laying over, how the passengers are doing, if it’s cool or warm enough in the cockpit and sometimes we chat about world events or company goings on. It’s almost always the same drill.

    Later in the flight I’m back in the cockpit for a second break and this time I’ve got the pilot’s crew meals. The first officer scoffs at how cheap the pasta dish is. He asks if this is the same pasta I serve in first class. It is. He is dumbfounded at how we get away with serving it for what people pay to sit in first. I sort of agree, but offer, “Well, I smile a lot, if that helps!” This makes him laugh and the buzzer sounds notifying us that the captain is ready to re-enter the cockpit.

    Now we play Stay Awake for the rest of the trip, going out to replenish drinks every so often and reading magazines left on the plane from previous crews. You can normally see the crew start to get excited about 40 minutes before landing. Not only for the work we have to do to prepare for landing, by putting things away and collecting trash in the cabin, but just in the excitement that soon the seatbelt sign will be on and the constant line for the lavatories at the back of the plane is finally gone.

   This trip has gone well; the passengers in first class weren’t as needy as they can be. Some were quite nice and talkative as they got up to use the lav. The guy in 3F was surly the whole time, but at least he wasn’t demanding. Mr. Upgrade wound up sleeping most of the trip. Madam was nice, telling me about her cruise to Alaska with her daughter, who lives in Oakland. I enjoyed the flight and working with the crew in the back. But it’s great to take my jump seat and finally see the tree tops out the window of door 1 left. Hello, Philly! I make my landing announcements, with a dash of humor, and I enjoy looking at the passengers who catch it, chuckle and look up at me. The woman in 9E gives me a thumbs up when I ask that people keep their conversations interesting when saying that they can now use their phones…as we are all listening.

   The taxi to the gate seems to take forever, like we actually landed in Camden and are just going to drive the rest of the way! Seatbelt sign is off, so I’m up to disarm my doors and check that the aft doors are also disarmed by calling the crew on the interphone. The jet bridge comes and the agent opens the door. I tell her that I have 2 passengers who need a wheelchair and have no other specials; sometimes we have unaccompanied minors that need an escort off the plane. I now say goodbye to over 130 passengers; trying to vary the parting comment so no one hears me say the same thing twice; goodbye, farewell, thank you for flying with us, enjoy your day, see you next time, have a great day, thanks for your business, goodbye, see you soon, thank you, farewell, adios, have a great day, etc. A few passengers thank me for the great announcements. Two shake my hands, one gives me a hug. That hardly ever happens, but I never refuse a hug.

Airplane getting serviced photo by PenguinScott

   The pilots rarely stay in the same hotel and they leave with the passengers. Soon, the plane is empty and a few passengers are waiting near the door for the strollers to be brought up from the cargo hold. There isn’t a crew waiting so we have to wait on the strollers as well. Once all the passengers are clear, we can enter the terminal and head to our pick up for the van to the hotel. It’s all prearranged and the pick-up area is listed on my paperwork.  The van shows up after waiting a few minutes and we are taken to the hotel. This time we are down town, since the layover is more than 20 hours. If it were less, we would stay in a hotel close to the airport. Check in is a breeze for us; a name and some information on a form and we are handed keys.

   I say farewell, for now, to my crew. I head to my room, change out of my uniform and head out to explore the city. I don’t have long, as my return flight is 0800 the following day and those 5 hours of sleep the night before are dragging me down fast. But I love Philly and head to my favorite spot for a great cheesesteak sandwich. I walk a few miles and return, exhausted, to my hotel room. I enjoy the fact that my windows face an apartment complex across the alley and spy on a few people who seem to enjoy the fact that they live across from a hotel with prying eyes. Oh, you didn’t know I’m a voyeur? I see a topless lady playing with her 3 dogs, a couple having sex through half-drawn blinds and a guy eating dinner on his sofa. He looks over and up at me and waves. I wave back and we laugh.

   It’s been a long day and it’ll be a short night. Time for bed; tomorrow comes too soon so often in this job. I’ll fly to Denver before eventually reaching SFO. I’m good for 2 more days when I get home and I know I’ll be used for them. I’ll get home; too tired to do the domestic projects that most of you get to enjoy doing when ‘you’ get home from work. I’ll put them off for another day. Before I know it, that bill I thought I’d pay when I next get home, doesn’t get paid until my next day off, in 3 or 4 days. But at least I will have 4 days off; one day to recover and 3 to do get things done. It’s never a dull moment in the life of a flight attendant!

747 in air by PenguinScott
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One of the worst days

Another gorgeous Pacifica day; clear blue skies, slight breeze, wonderful ocean with mist rising into the air; I love living here. I had my plan: Chinese consulate to renew my visa, stop at Costco for gas and a few items, doctor’s office, then to the mall to conduct a mystery shop for dinner.
I left a little later than planned, so I felt rushed to get to the consulate before they closed. Traffic was heavy, like it was nearing rush hour, but it was only 1:20. I found a parking spot only 2 blocks from the consulate, which was good for the part of the city I was in. It was now ten to two and the sign stated no parking from 11-2. There were many other cars parked, so I thought I’d take my chance, but no need to worry. I got half a block and suddenly I realized I didn’t recall grabbing my passport. I checked my pockets and the contents of the envelope in which I had placed my application. Nothing. All that way, all that traffic, for nothing. Back to the car in shame.
                Because of the traffic, I decided to go back a different route, which did seem better. I found a good parking spot at Costco and as I grabbed my wallet to show my membership ID, I realized I DID have my passport. Now I was really kicking myself. How could I have not realized I actually had it on me? Why didn’t I feel it when I searched my pockets? And the whole drive back south I was racking my brain on where I had put it the night before after making the required copies for the application. I just couldn’t remember.

Cloudy
                My brain has been on vacation for a while. It was very bad after my illness in November of 2009. It’s been a long, slow process of healing and feeling like I’m on top of things again.  A few weeks ago, I nearly missed my first trip back to work after thinking it was on a Sunday, when it was actually on a Saturday. I still don’t know how I did that. Now this.
                I felt bad and a bit worried about myself so I called Mom and told her. She laughed, saying she does things like this all the time. I hear that a lot, when explaining odd things I have done in my recovery. But I was never like this. Mom used to always tell me what a great memory I had. I graduated in the top 10% of my class. I’m a smart person. Or I used to be.
                I told Mom I was in Costco to get some mouthwash. I also needed to buy ink for my printer, cash my annual cash back check and stop for gas. I walked around as I talked to Mom and got a few food samples. I found the mouthwash and got in line. Before leaving, I thought I’d treat myself to a mocha freeze. I pulled out of the parking lot to head to the doctor’s office, not half a mile away. I still had 20 minutes, so I parked in the garage with a view of San Bruno Mountain and texted a friend of mine, who I knew would enjoy hearing of my time with trying to renew my visa. He did laugh.
                As I sat in the waiting room, I realized I had left Costco without getting ink or cashing my check. Now I was really feeling stupid. I was also feeling quite tired and while I waited to see the doctor about my sleep apnea, I wondered if there isn’t something more seriously wrong than just, well, “I do things like that all the time, it’s normal.”
                Things checked out OK at the doctor’s. My next stop was the mall. My assignment there was to have dinner at Five Guys to evaluate customer service and timing. I had also received in the mail a week prior a post card from the mall. Turn it in to receive a gold egg and maybe inside will be a $500 prize. Taking a better look at it, I now realized I was in the wrong mall. It was the right mall for the assignment, but the prize was another mall entirely. Not sure how I didn’t realize that, either.
                On the way home, with my failed day still going through my head, I thought about how I now am constantly worrying myself. When I leave for errands, when I leave a hotel room after a layover, when I board a plane or walk into the briefing room before a flight, I’m always feeling like I’m forgetting something. I take careful notes on what time I have to be places and what things I need to take. For weeks I’ve been forgetting to buy aspirin. Last week I went to cook meals for the pilots, turning on the oven without placing the meals in them. It caused me to overcook the meals for the passengers. I think now know what it feels like to be 80! And it’s scary as hell. This constant feeling like I’m forgetting something is stressful. What if I forget something important, like arming doors for takeoff?
                As I drove down Highway 1 towards home I enjoyed the view of the Pacific Ocean as the sun neared the horizon.  The sky was clear and there was now enough mist over the ocean that it rose quite high and created a haze as I looked out to the ocean. The breeze blew this haze on shore to where it nudged into the hills and gave way to the blue sky above. The light on my gas gauge came on. I had forgotten to get gas at Costco. God damn it.
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Adventures in Flight: Penguin in the Left Seat

The sun had set and a dark purple curtain of darkness had fallen. There wasn’t enough light to be illuminating, yet it wasn’t quite dark enough to say it was night time. I could still see the features of landscape in the distance, but only as darkened objects against the lighter colored sky. I sat in the left seat of a 747 cockpit, the one normally reserved for the plane’s captain. I’m no captain. I’m not even a pilot. I would like to be, but I’m not. But there I was, sitting in the left seat; the engines turning and the lights at the forward landing gear lighting up the centerline of the runway.

In front of me was runway 28-right, the longest of the four runways at San Francisco’s International Airport. A real captain was in the right seat next to me and he hit a switch, turning on the plane’s landing lights, thus illuminating the runway from one side to the other. Past the runway I could see San Bruno Mountain with its antenna towers blinking on and off. I looked to my left and could see the headlights of the cars moving along highway 101 and was happy to not be sitting in the backup of traffic. To my right was the company’s large maintenance hangar and the San Francisco bay was beyond that.

Captain Henry was more than my co-pilot today. He was guiding me through the step by step process of our mission. He finished inputting data into the plane’s computer and we were ready to roll. But first he wanted me to experience taxiing this behemoth. At his instruction, I pushed the throttles forward just over an inch. I heard the engines rev up, felt the vibration and then the plane slowly started to move. With my left hand on the tiller, I began to control the direction the plane went. As we lurched forward, the wheels began to run across the centerline lights and I could feel the plane vibrate over them.

A747 photo by Penguin Scott

I felt like this was a dream. I’ve longed to ride in a 747 cockpit for a very long time. I remember taking a small Cessna from Maryland to New Jersey back in 1999; I was so excited. After we landed, I spoke to my pilot friend about how great it would be to fly in the cockpit of a commercial jetliner. He agreed, and I’ve since done that. But here I was, in the cockpit- the left seat at that- at the controls. It was no dream.

I was instructed to turn right, off of runway 28R, and return the plane to its takeoff position at the start of the long runway. Capt. Henry gave me a stern warning- I was turning too soon. “Don’t forget, the wheels are behind you. You have to pass the center line and then make the turn.” While saying this, he assisted me with the tiller on his side of the cockpit and corrected my mistake. It was a hard thing for me to learn as I did it again on my next turn, for which I was rewarded with another stern warning.

Steering a plane is nothing like steering a car. It doesn’t respond well to small corrections made often. Basically, what I needed to do was put the tiller in one position and let it go. Constant corrections only make the plane continually zig-zag down the taxiway. By the time I learned this, my taxi was complete.

Back at the start of runway 28R, we were now ready for take off. I was buckled in and ready for the task of letting this 747 loose, to tear down the runway and lift off into the night sky. Capt. Henry instructed me to push the throttles forward. There were four; one for each engine, and they all moved in sync. It took a second and then the power hit the engines and the plane lurched forward, gaining speed down the runway. I asked the captain when to rotate. He seemed impressed with my knowledge of this.

When I was in flight attendant initial training, nine years previous, I had the opportunity to sit in a cockpit for the duration of a flight, from push back to block-in. After taking off, I had the chance to ask questions. This is when I learned that the point at which the pilot pulls back on the stick to make the plane take off is the point at which one of the pilots say, “Rotate.” And now, in the 747 cockpit, not sure if he’d state that point of the takeoff roll or not, Capt. Henry said he’d tell me when to do so.

About half way down the runway, he told me to pull back. I did and the plane lifted up. Capt. Henry pushed a lever and the wheels retracted. I could hear them do so and could feel them take their place in the wheel well somewhere below me, just as I had felt so many times before from inside the airplane cabin. He pointed to an artificial horizon (or the attitude indicator) on a screen in front of me and showed me at what point to keep the nose on the screen to keep our current rate of climb. If the plane started to sink below this line, I pulled back a bit. If it started to get too high, I pushed down. Then I was instructed to make a left turn.

As I began to turn the stick, and as the plane began to bank to the left, I noticed that I was losing my rate of climb, so I pulled back on the stick. It was difficult and took a bit of strength. I was concentrating so hard on keeping the rate of climb, that I ignored the turn. I got another stern warning from the right seat, “Watch your turn or you’ll end up in the drink,” which was slang for water, or in this case, the Pacific Ocean.

We were now over the water just off the coast of Pacifica, which was my home. I looked up and out of the cockpit window and we were in a very steep bank. He grabbed the wheel in front of him and corrected it back to a normal left turn. It was a good thing the cockpit has two sets of throttles so he could make the flight corrections we needed.

His warnings reminded me a lot of my grandfather teaching me to drive. I spent my summers visiting my grandparents in the Texas Panhandle. Once I had my learner’s permit, he went with me on a short drive. He had a tendency to sound a bit more stern than I’m sure he meant to, but he made his point and was concerned about me wrapping his nice car around a pole, or worse, another car. And like my grandfather, Capt. Henry was concerned about our safety, not to mention that of our flight.

The turn was completed and we were now flying steady at about eight thousand feet just off the coast of California. I could see the car lights on Hwy. 1. Capt. Henry instructed the woman in the jump seat directly behind me to hit a switch and suddenly the windows went blank; nothing to see but a gray screen. Another switch was hit and the windows came back to life. Suddenly, the view changed to about five miles south of the airport. We were now over the bay, frozen in time, suspended as if in a video game.

But this was no ordinary video game. This was a multi million dollar simulator, used by the best pilots of the company for training purposes. My captain in the right seat was a flight instructor. And I had just taxied and taken off a 747 airplane. Not a real one, of course. But you can’t get any closer to the real thing than one of these simulators. From the traffic on highway 101 and the blinking lights of the towers on San Bruno Mountain, to the wheels crossing the lights on the runway and the feel of the wheels retracting after takeoff, everything was as real as the real thing itself.

From the outside, I was in a contraption supported by numerous jacks that control a motion platform. On the inside, I was in a 747 cockpit just like any other in our fleet. Inputs made from inside controlled the motion platform, which was calibrated in such a manner that even the slightest motion, like the wheel going over the center line, made a movement noticeable in the cockpit.

A flight simulator

We were now ready to land, and with the hit of another switch we were again moving. The lights of the city below were angled as the nose of the plane was pointed at the beginning of the runway we were about to land on. As we crossed the San Mateo Bridge, he lowered the landing gear. As they locked into place, they added drag on the plane’s flight, and we could feel that in the cockpit as slight vibrations. Looking at the attitude indicator, I kept the box on the artificial horizon where it was supposed to be for our landing. I thought Capt. Henry did most of the flying on the approach, but he swears it was all me. I know this plane can land itself, and it really did seem to fly quite easily.

The plane came to a stop. I had landed. The switches were hit and the screens went blank again. When they came back on, we were at the start of runway 28R once more. I got out of the left seat and Sandy, the flight attendant seated behind me climbed in. Now it was her turn to fly and mine to observe.

I was at our main training facility for my annual recurrent emergency training (RET) to refresh my skills of being a flight attendant. Once a year, we are required to practice opening and closing airplane doors, drill emergency procedures, recertify our AED and CPR skills, and get hands on experience using emergency equipment, such as fire extinguishers. I normally do this at my home base in the Bay Area, where I also live. But for some reason, this year I was sent to the facility where the pilots also train. And after a few of us in class expressed interest in a tour of one of the huge simulators, our instructor was able to arrange for Capt. Henry to meet us early the next day. I had no idea he’d actually let us “fly”, but it was the thrill of a lifetime!

After we completed our takeoff and landing, we went to class, a bit later than planned. I was so excited that I was actually still shaky from the experience. The instructor had informed the class as to why we were late and he asked me how I liked it. I told him that I felt much the same way after my first time sky diving. It was a thrill, exhilarating, and a dream come true. I was on a high like none other! Every nerve tingled. Every sense was alive. I had just taxied, taken off and landed a 747. Not a real one, but the realest I’ll ever get. It was an amazing experience that I’ll not soon forget!

A 747 landing at LAX

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Adventures in Flight: JumpSeat Therapy


Jump Seat Therapy by Penguin Scott 2-21-09

It’s so good to be back home. My two cats are purring and a storm is blowing in with lots of rain and wind. I would have beat the storm had I not had to stop at the store on the way home from the airport. I do love my milk, and since I’m off for the next four days, I needed a few other provisions as well.

I find it difficult to keep track of time with my job. Weeks have little meaning to me, since my schedule is always different and most of my weekends are 3 or 4 days long. But what’s worse is just keeping track of days. I only left yesterday morning, but it seems like it was 3 days ago. It’s hard to imagine I’ve only been gone 41 hours. After all, in that time I’ve been to Vancouver, Chicago (twice) and Buffalo, NY for 19 hours. It’s why I demand my watch have two time zones, one of which I always keep on local time, and also have the day and date. It’s a common affliction with flight attendants; having a hard time keeping up with time.

This was an easy trip; only two days, most flights had light loads, the layover was 19 hours. But yesterday was such a long day- a 12 hour duty day with nearly 8 hours of flight time. The hard part was that I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, when I wasn’t due up until 5:00. I never could get back to sleep. So by the time I arrived in my hotel room at the Hyatt in downtown Buffalo, I was spent. I even passed on the offer of drinks by our pilots, something I normally would not do.

Mostly, there were just the three of us on this trip; myself, my flying partner, Tea, and the purser, Michelle. We were all very close in seniority, my being most senior, which is quite rare! There was one segment of the trip when we were on a larger plane with two others joining us. But otherwise, it was just us three.

One fun aspect of my job is the camaraderie. There is a term commonly used in our industry: jump seat therapy. The jump seat is the fold down seat near each door on the plane where we are assigned to sit. Flight attendants tend to open up and tell their flying partners things most people wouldn’t tell complete strangers. And with over 15,000 flight attendants system-wide, most people we fly with are complete strangers. Well, they start out that way. After a 2-day or more trip with them, you get to know them really well. It’s easy to open up and very therapeutic, so before long one starts to hang all the laundry out.

Tea is a woman in her mid 40s. She lives in the northern part of the East Bay with her husband and two daughters. Well, actually, one daughter, as one just left for college. They are attractive girls, both with natural blond hair, but the one who just left for college had hers dyed red. I know this from Tea’s blackberry, which had a photo of her girls on the front screen. Each time we landed the first thing she would do is pull it out and turn it on. Looking over at it, I had a good view of the photo, so I asked if they were here girls.

This was Tea’s second trip back from a year off for a medical leave. She got an infection on her finger that was similar to a staff infection. She had to go the hospital daily for an I.V. She was a little rusty and full of questions. “What are the new rumors of a merger? How do you do the new liquor paperwork? Now that we staff 757s with four, how do we work the service? Do we still have the nice downtown layover in Chicago?” Just simple questions, normal for someone who’s been gone for a while, and I was happy to give the answers I could. She was not rusty on the beverage cart, though. She was quite prompt, in fact. But I have a tendency to say hi or strike up a small conversation with passengers when I’m delivering drinks, so there are times I seem slow in my service. So many flight attendants just fling the drink at you and move on. And all of our flights had plenty of time, so I was even more encouraged to be polite.

Tea liked to name drop. On her time away from flying, she had volunteered for the Obama campaign. She was even invited to attend a speech in Phoenix where she got to stand right behind him as he gave his address. She got to meet him as well, and his wife. Later, she would plop down next to me with her lap top to show me photos. They were much like any photo I’ve ever seen of Barack or of Michelle, although I have yet to see a photo of the silver shoes Mrs. Obama wears. “My daughter asked me to take a picture of her shoes,” she told me when I chuckled at the shot.

Her friend just lost a dog, who was more a child to her. She took 2 weeks from work to grieve. When she heard that a famous actor had just lost his dog, this friend of hers, who makes jewelry, designed a necklace for him with a photo of his dog in it. She found the name of the actor’s agent and got in touch with them to see if he would be interested in having her send it to him. They asked if she could do so within two days, before he left for the Oscars. He was so excited to receive the necklace, he called her to thank her and wants to meet with her for dinner.

There were other names dropped. But as usual, as I sat on the jump seat, my interest was more in line with seeing what I could out of the small windows we have to see out of. With my airplane disease (obsession with planes), I like to see the airport, the runways and the planes taxiing. I like the views as we ascend or descend and of the clouds. I’m often deep in thought and tuning out most of what the women sitting next to me are spewing out, trying only to catch the important parts so that later I can regurgitate some of it so they think I was listening.

It’s different sitting next to another guy. We can sit in silence for 10 or 15 minutes and not be afraid that we don’t like one another. And if the guy next to me has little in common with me, it’s not uncommon to remain silent for nearly the entire trip. And that’s just fine with guys. There are always the standard questions, whether flying with a man or a woman, which are: what is your seniority, where do you live, if they commute, where do you commute to, where did you grow up and what did you do before becoming a flight attendant? Most flight attendants cover these basics at some time or another in the trip, whether you are with them for one flight or six. And talk of union and work issues is almost always guaranteed to carry us through the down times of the flight.

Whereas Tea liked to drop names, Michelle really liked to talk. I didn’t really notice that she was so addicted to speaking as she is until we got in the van to drive to our hotel last night in Buffalo. Michelle worked up front and I was in back with Tea. Tea set up the galley on each leg, which meant I greeted passengers up at door one, right next to Michelle. She did have a habit of interrupting me when I was speaking. She did have a lot to say. But when we got in the van (after twelve hours of working, eight hours of flying, we were tired, it was dark and the ride took us about 20 minutes) she talked. I was in the beginning of what would eventually become the worst migraine headache I’d had in years…many, many years. Out of the airport, she talked; along the freeway, she talked; through downtown, she talked more. When the headache again woke me this morning at 3am, I couldn’t help but wonder if wasn’t from all the talking.

Michelle was a little younger than Tea, and me; I’d guess she was in her late 30s. She just celebrated her ninth wedding anniversary the night before our trip. They had gone out to dinner, and while she wasn’t up too late, she was tired. A few years ago she bought her first new car, all others had been bought used. It was a 4runner, which is what I drive, but I wasn’t able to relay that information to her. It was stolen when it had 8,000 miles on it, which for some reason made it difficult to sell, which she had to do because the payments got to be too high. She was able to sell it and buy another car and pay it off 2 years sooner than she would have done with the 4runner. Now her only payment is her mortgage.

Michelle lives with her husband in Walnut Creek and mostly takes BART to the airport. I’m not sure how the car thing came up. I’m not sure why she started to talk about her sister and her brother in law and their house. Then I’m not sure what else she spoke of as I was doing all I could to phase her out and take in the sights of Buffalo.

At one point I was yelling at her in my head, “Shut up! You have not stopped talking for more than five seconds. I need some silence! Oh my god!” It was sort of funny, actually. It’s for times like these I wished I didn’t keep my MP3 player packed in my bag, which was stored in the back of the van, where I couldn’t reach it. My kingdom for some earplugs!

When we got out of the van, the captain made a comment to me about her chatter, “Sheesh, I make one comment about a car payment and it propelled her through the rest of the trip.” “I know,” I told him, “thank goodness this is only a 2-day trip. But I’m used to it as this is quite common with a lot of flight attendants.”

Back on the plane today, there would be times I went to the front of the plane to tell her something. She’d start in on a story and I’d wait patiently to for her to finish in order to get out that which I had to say. I’d finally have to give up on waiting, find a moment when she was taking a breath, and blurt it out only hoping she wouldn’t interrupt me. She did end up buying me an order of Buffalo wings at the airport in New York. She was very nice and treated passengers well. She was simply addicted to speech. And where I normally wouldn’t feel comfortable with someone buying me dinner, in this case I took it as compensation.

People were all nice on this 2-day trip. Our flight up to Vancouver was light and the last row of seats were left empty. We blocked them off so passengers wouldn’t take them. We call this our ‘lounge’. I’d been up so early and was already tired. After we finished the service, I took a seat in the lounge and looked out the window. Below was a large city along side a river and on the other side were some hills. I studied the downtown closer, lots of buildings, it was a good-sized city. I forgot where we were going for a moment, thinking maybe we were going to Chicago, and wondered if it was St. Louis. I found the major airport, and it wasn’t where the airport in St. Louis would be, and I couldn’t see the arch. I kept trying to think of what this city might be, thinking in my head of all the cities between San Francisco and Chicago. Then I realized that we were going north along the West Coast and the city was Portland. Ah, Portland; I have good friends down there. I jumped to the other side for a view of the snow-topped mountains. It was gorgeous. As well as having a hard time keeping track of days, we often forget to where it is that we are going.

We were only in Vancouver for an hour or so before setting off for Chicago, where we had just over two hours before our third flight to Buffalo. I spent my time on the computer working trip trades for the following month.

As we boarded our flight to Buffalo, a young boy of about 7 or 8 walked on the plane. I said hello to him and he looked up at me and said, “I love god.” I was a bit shocked to hear this. It’s not every day I hear this from a small child. “That’s, um, great!” I replied. His mother was just behind him and smiled to us as she informed us he had just received a new cross on his necklace and was referring to that.

After he passed, Michelle asked if she heard him correctly. This brought up a discourse on how religion on children is nothing more than brainwashing. “I mean, they believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny just as much as whatever religion their parents are shoving down their throat.” I was brought up with different views, Jewish, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Shaman and Paganism. I agreed that perhaps it was best to treat religion like a subject in school and allow a young adult to find the path of their own choosing. I couldn’t disagree.

But then there was the girl on my flight home tonight from Chicago in seat 34G. She sat next to her mother who, on both of their tray tables, had spread out a virtual buffet of food; a feast for the two of them. I made a comment about this and the girl informed me of her loose tooth, thinking it might even come out during flight. I smiled back to her and said, well, at least if that happens up here, you’ll be closer to the Tooth Fairy! She smiled a toothy grin and looked over at her mom in excitement. She hadn’t thought of that! Funny how we let go of certain myths and hold dearly to others.

We were late arriving, which put a bind on Michelle’s schedule. She had a train to catch home or she’d have to end up spending the night in the airport. She left quickly so Tea and I walked to the bus together, then to the elevator in the garage. She got off on the 5th floor and we said farewell. Another trip was over. It was an easy week, but I’m ready for my 4-day weekend. I don’t know when I’ll see Tea or Michelle again. But I always carry extra aspirin; and I’m always ready for my next session of jump seat therapy.

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Adventures in Flight: Pamper Me

Story and photo at Osaka airport by Penguin Scott

A week off. I can fly for free. I’ve been working very hard. I needed to be pampered and wanted to go somewhere. My trip to Israel was postponed, so I started to think about places to go. I’m a flight attendant, but my wanderlust was out of control.

Vietnam? Needs a visa, no time to get one.

Moscow? I’d rather go in spring. Oh, and we haven’t started flying there, yet.

Frankfurt? Not bad, light loads. But I’ve been there.

South America. Fun, but I didn’t really feel like having to sit in IAD for a few hours.

Seoul; to see BadKitty? She sort of nixed the idea. Not much time off and her little space would have been difficult. I sort of agreed.

New Zealand to see Annika? A bit far to go for such a short amount of time.

Japan? I’ve not been there in so long, I love it there. Flight’s not too long. OK, Japan. I love Narita, best noodle shop in the world, caters to all the airlines that stay there. The airport there has more 747s than any other airport in the world. I love me some 747s. I once spent a layover hanging out at the airport there. How many flight attendants on layover go back to hang out at the airport? I’m funny that way.

But oh, no, we only fly the 777 to NRT and I want to fly in the new OC. Our new 747OC has been reconfigured for international travel. The seats in business lie flat. The suites in first are upgraded with better audio-visual and even games. It’s really sweet.

Osaka flights are on the OC. So I was listed to KIX. I checked the paperwork. OC to KIX for 3 hours. Then, due to budget constraints, right back on the same plane. I’d be in KIX for only three hours. I had some writing projects to work on. I had some reading I could do. There would be movies on board to enjoy. I was not all worried about spending 19 hours on a plane.

At a party the night before I was to leave, a good friend mentioned how she hates planes and airports. I love planes. I love being on them, taking off, landing; and in first class…what’s not to love? And as I just stated, I love hanging out at airports. One person’s ceiling is another’s floor. One’s junk is another’s treasure.

I got to the airport and went to the gate. I took my seat and waited for my name. I thought they might call it early since the loads were so light; 4 in first, 20 in business and 119 in coach. But they waited until the plane was mostly boarded. As I waited, I heard an announcement for some names, stating there were some seat changes made due to the change in aircraft. Panic struck when I turned to see that the nose number of the jumbo sitting just out the window was different. They had changed the plane to an OB, not the newly configured OC. I thought briefly about ditching the trip and just going home. But I was already there, ready to go, so I might as well just enjoy the meals and pampering.

My seat was 2J. Stowed my things, settled in, drank a cup of champagne and sat in my seat like it was my throne. Oh, I can do first class. I even hid any baggage identifiers that would give me away as being crew. As far as any other passengers knew, I was a full-paying passenger, just as they were. (They were probably standby’s as well, though!)

Take off happened and soon I was reclined with a file of work out. The purser took my meal order, brought me warm nuts and another glass of champagne. It was a Henriot Cuvee des Enchanteleurs 1999. I’m not picky on champagne. I enjoy $3 bottles as much as the $80 bottles. And let me tell you, this was a good bottle.

I continued to work on one of my future novels while eating the warm nuts. I save the cashews for last, since they are my favorites. There were also almonds, pecans and macadamias. I started eating the pecans and realized that I normally pick around them. I sort of felt obligated to eat them, being from Texas and with the pecan tree being the official state tree. I love them in recipes and pies. But normally, I just go for my favorites, the cashews and macadamias.

My work was cut short when the hot towel was delivered, meaning my meal was about to start. I put it aside to be worked on later.

First out was a shrimp, bacon and corn cake with jalapeño shallot crème fraiche. The bacon was a wonderful touch and the sprigs of cilantro really made this dish for me. A bread basket was brought out and I selected the pretzel roll, warmed to perfection and complete with a wonderful pretzel coating.

Next was the soup, artichoke chicken Florentine with wonderful full flavor, great body and quite thick with great chunks of chicken. I could have made a meal out of it, but there was more to come. As I finished the soup, the salad was brought out on the queen cart. Fresh season greens with red bell peppers, yellow teardrop tomatoes and seasoned croutons. I selected the classic Caesar dressing, thank you, and don’t forget the fresh ground pepper.

For the main course I enjoyed rosemary lemon Mediterranean sea bass with tomato and olive ragout. It was sided with a creamy vegetable risotto and green and yellow haricots verts. The fish had a slight fish taste that was not overbearing. I enjoyed my entrée with a glass of white wine. I always have a hard time leaving the champagne, but the Jolivet Shateau du Nozay 2006 Sauvignon blanc made it easy to do. In fact, later in the flight, instead of more champagne, I had more white wine. It was light and fruity without being too sweet.

Finally the plates were removed and the queen cart came by with dessert: a choice of seasonal fruits and cheeses and ice cream sundaes. I had a sundae, chocolate sauce and cookie, hold the whipped cream. It was a bowl of two scoops, one vanilla, the other chocolate. I round it off with a glass of Sandeman’s porto.

I don’t often order chocolate ice cream. It’s not on my list of favorites. But when I do indulge, it reminds me of my grandmother. I spent my summers at her house and she often pulled out ice cream at night for dessert. I think my grandfather was a fan. He always made coke floats with vanilla. But I guess chocolate was a favorite of hers, so when I have it now, I always think of her.

With the meal over, I continued to work on my novel. It’s one that’s been mulling around in my head for about 13 years now. I’m finally working out the details. I worked on the timeline of the main character’s parents, their ages, where they lived, how they met, etc. I had a file folder full of ideas that I’d been putting in there for all these years. It was great to finally be fleshing out some of the details for this book. But with so many projects on deck right now, I doubt I’ll actually start writing it just yet. It’s just nice to have some of this figured out.

After a nap and more wine, we were soon to land in Osaka. Before doing so, there was another meal service. I mean it had been six hours since the last one. This service was much less formal. It came out on one tray, no queen cart. This time it was a beef pastrami sandwich with baby Swiss on rye with oven roasted fingerling potatoes and fresh fruit. It was warmed so the cheese was all gooey and melted. I really liked this and don’t recall ever having served it.

Soon we were touching down and the wonderful service was but a memory; the hot towels, the clean linens, the cold flatware, the butter in shapes of flower petals, fresh ground pepper and attentive flight attendants.

We landed around 4pm local time. I had taken off around 1130. Basically, the sun had only moved the equivalent of about 4 hours. Since I had taken off, the plane barely moved, as more as the earth had moved under me. It made me think, there must be a place on the globe and a speed to fly in which the sun would remain in the same place all the time. The plane would never move, only the earth under it. How fascinating.

Off the plane, through security, back to the gate and back on the same plane home. On board I found that one of the flight attendants serving me would be a woman I had worked with not too long ago. It was good to see her, but now my cover was blown. The previous crew had known I was crew, it’s on the passenger manifest. But soon the word was spread that I was a crew member and that I had just brought this plane in. The purser came to check on me and wondered why I’d be doing such a flight. “I wanted to be pampered and to fly the OC.” She felt badly about the plane change. She did well for the rest of my flight to ensure that I was taken care of.

Going home, I enjoyed more champagne, of course, and more warm nuts. I refused seconds on the nuts, but the champagne flowed freely. The appetizer was a shrimp, scallop and cilantro potsticker with roasted red pepper sauce, creamy curry apple soup, and fresh seasonal greens, this time with blue cheese dressing. Again, I selected a sea bass, this time it was wrapped in rice paper and pan-seared with lemon butter soy sauce with pak choy, carrots and cauliflower. After my meal I watched Ghost Town, which was funny, then fell asleep. I slept for about 5 hours, waking just before the breakfast service. I selected the fruit and yogurt, since the omelette was listed as an onion omelette. Ew.

In all, I was gone for about 25 hours. I was on the ground in Japan for 3 hours. I had 2 really nice meals, nearly 2 bottles of champagne, 4 glasses of white wine, 2 glasses of red, 2 servings of port wine, worked on 2 books and watched a movie. It was nice. And it only cost me the gas to get from my home in Pacifica to the parking garage at work. I do love my job.

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Morristown, NJ


Photo by Penguin Scott

May 28 2008

Long Newark layovers have always been an enjoyable trip, excepting for the 6am departures to go back home. A 0430 pickup means waking up at 0330. That’s 1:30am to me, being that I live in San Francisco. And I’m a night owl, so I’m usually going to bed about the time of our pickup, unless I have to be up for work, of course.

Since hotels in New York are so expensive, we stay about 20 minutes away in a little sleepy town in NJ. Morristown is very historic as well. There are markers for locations where Hamilton met with spies and with French diplomats. There is a cemetery with markers from the 1700’s. George Washington directed troops in the Continental Army here. He was headquartered here, slept here, etc. The fact he slept there, always a big deal it seems, anywhere Washington slept, makes me wonder about the other suppositions that go along with it. Washington must also have pissed in the woods, among other things!

I enjoy finding new things to do on my layovers here in Morristown. I once walked to the Ford mansion, where Washington was based. Once I walked up to Speedwell Lake, a small lake about a mile away with a nice little trail to follow amongst the tall trees and lots swans, ducks and water rings formed from the fish poking their noses into the surface of the lake.

I wanted to see something new for this trip so I got on line and poked around and found out that a few blocks away was a fort on top of a hill. It was called Fort Nonsense. It got its name from the troops who were sent there to build a fort and encampment for about 30 men. Raised above the small town, it was to serve as a lookout for the British and a signal fire, or beacon was to be built to signal troops in the region to gather at preselected meeting points to react to the emergency. The troops thought the work was nonsense, prepared to keep them busy. But Gen. Washington always garnished having the high ground in any situation.

After getting some sleep to recover from my red eye trip, I awoke to beautiful, cloudless day. It was about 70 degrees with a light breeze. I had heard one can see Manhattan from the top of Ft. Nonsense, so I was lucky to have such a nice day to make my viewing of it.

It was quite close, a nice, steep walk up the road to the top. I was alone, save for an ambulance and its crew of 3 who were talking to a guy on a motorcycle. I found a picnic table at which to sit and ponder some things going on in my life for a bit, watching a cute little chipmunk make its way near me; then after finding out I had nothing to offer, scampered off in another direction.

After my break, I walked around, reading the various informational signs that littered the park. They outlined the fort’s history, gave info on the foundaries of the area, informed of troop activities and named Washington’s temporary home nearby.

There were not many good vantage points to get a view, considering that I on top of a hill that I estimate as being about as high as a 20-story building, due to the numerous and high trees. I gathered from the drawings on the plaques that these trees had mostly been chopped down in the late 1700s.

As I approached the one decent opening of trees I passed the 4 other people at the fort, nodding a greeting as the walked from the view back towards the ambulance. However, one guy came up towards me. He smiled at me and asked if I was a history buff. I told not so much, but was just enjoying another thing to do in Morristown, explaining my business here. I told him I’d heard there was a view of Manhattan, but was disappointed in not seeing it. So he walked me down into the grass a bit and started showing me the layout.

To the east is a ridge of mountains, about 600 feet high. This mostly blocks the view, but you can see a few things. He showed me where the Empire State Building was, the spires of the George Washington Bridge, and where the Trade Center Towers used to stand. I was amazed at how far apart it seemed to be, then realized that I was only seeing the top 15 or so floors of the ES building. Were to be on that ridge, closer to town, I would be shown a wondrous view of the city, he told me.

Next he pointed out a few other points of interest; a nearby collage, a water tower-200 feet from which, is where he lived- the hospital he was based in. The hospital is known for it’s heart work. They don’t do transplants there, but soon will be. I told him I hope to never have to find out how well they are!

It was very nice of him to show me these things. I introduced myself and found out his name is Brian. He and his crew do specials, meaning the only transport patients from one hospital to the next, they don’t respond to emergencies. They had a rare occurrence of some downtime and came to the park to relax.

It’s one thing to be able to visit a town and read up on some of its history. It’s another to be able to meet a local get a behind the scenes sort of look and knowledge I would never get on my own. Like Morristown being the seat of the 2nd wealthiest county in the country; the base of many corporations, and the stopping place for some of the elite. The Vanderbilt’s once lived “over there”, Whitney Houston lives in the area, as well some high named Wall St. investors.

The time for our visit came to an end. I walked back down the hill to find many of the workers getting off from work and filling the sidewalks to make their way to their cars and homes.

Like Washington in 1777, I now prepare to rest for the night in the same town he once did. Unlike our founding father, I have a Hyatt bed and soft pillows. I’m also not afraid of the British invading at any given time.

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Stop Causing Trouble


Photo by Penguin Scott

OK people, stop getting on my flights and causing trouble. When you get on my flight and cause trouble, it just means I have to fill out paperwork. Paperwork is in triplicate and if you get on my flight and cause trouble when I’m not at my home base, I have to make a copy of my report and send it to the base where we landed just after you caused the trouble.

But before there is paperwork, there is calling the captain to advise him that you are causing trouble. After we land I have to describe the trouble you caused to a police officer and a supervisor. Sometimes the two of them are not together when one or the other asks me to describe the trouble you caused on my flight. This means I have to repeat myself- and I hate repeating myself.

After I’ve described the trouble you caused to the police and local supervisor, (who then relay the trouble you caused to the FBI) chances are, the other flight attendants then also want to hear my version of the trouble you caused on our flight.

Really, all I want to do is serve you a drink. If there is food to serve, I’d love to do that for you, too. If you have questions about planes, airports, air traffic control, my job or penguins, and I’m not too busy serving other passengers, I’d also love to answer anything I can. But when you come onto my flight and start causing trouble, I get upset.

On my flight to Denver, after we’d gone through the cabin preparing for landing, my flying partner comes up to me in the first class galley and tells me a passenger just grabbed her and was causing trouble when asked to stow her belongings for landing. My flying partner grabbed my arm to show me what it was like. It hurt. I told her to let go and wanted to hit her back. I asked if I needed to go talk to her and was told yes, I did. Since I was the purser, or the head flight attendant on this trip, I was obligated.

I was told she had alcohol on her breath, although when I got to her seat, I couldn’t tell. The woman in 12C was a nicely-dressed woman in her 50s. Her outfit indicated that she had taste. Her jewelry indicated she was not hurting in our troubled economy- after all, she had my annual salary on her right hand alone.

I asked her a few question and she seemed a bit sluggish in answering; not that she slurred her speech, but it took a moment for her to process my questions and come up with an answer. She indicated that my flying partner had been badgering her. The couple seated next to her looked over to me as if to say, “Nuh-uh!” I told her that it seemed unlikely that the person in question had been badgering her, being that she had been working in first class with me, and spent very little time, if any, in economy.

She told me she lives in three different homes and flies my airline often, commuting from one to the another. She said this was the worst treatment she has ever had. I thanked her for her continued business but let her know that someone would need to speak to her when we landed. “Oh, I can’t wait when we land, my husband is meeting me and I have another flight to catch.” “Well, unfortunately, a chain of events has already been triggered, so you will be detained a bit when we land,” I shot back. And if this was the worst treatment she’s ever had at our airline, she is lucky to have been treated so well for so long!

At this point, a glance out the window showed that the ground was ever so close. I excused myself to return to the first class galley so I could finish putting things away and then took my jump seat for landing.

Sure enough, upon landing, we found four police officers and two supervisors waiting. The lady stayed in her seat during deplaning, while my flying partner first spoke to the authorities, then it was my turn. By the time I’d finished, the last passenger stepped off the plane and a young officer went to her seat to speak to her.

Our flight was delayed and we had arrived a little late, so they took her off the plane. Another supervisor asked if we were OK to continue flying, like maybe we were too phased to continue the trip. Yes, we were just fine. Could we now board the plane? Yes, let’s please, since we were now 30 minutes behind schedule and we had to first stop in Chicago before eventually arriving in Philadelphia for our layover.

She had to go and cause trouble. Now I have to go and write up my report. In triplicate!

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ABOUT THIS BLOGSPOT

Back in the early nineties I had an injury that kept me from full time work for two years. During that time I kept telling myself that I wanted to start writing a book. I had a basic topic, short story horror, and even a few story ideas. But I was young and foolish and wasted my time watching the Munsters and partying with my roommate and his buddies.

When I started working again I wished I hadn’t wasted so much time. I spent the next ten years thinking about writing, coming up with new stories to tell, developing characters and plots. But I was working too hard to have the energy or patience to sit down and write.

Then I got a job with a lot of time off. “Finally, I can start to write,” I thought. And I did. However, I had new fodder to write about now. Oh, I fully intended to start writing my fiction, but my life was so much fun now. You see, I had gotten a job as a flight attendant. It wasn’t what I set out to do, but the job had fallen in my lap, and I was looking to travel anyway. So I thought, “Why not?”

I was coming back from trips all over the world and telling my family and friends about it. They kept asking for more. My uncle in New Jersey, told me that I should keep a good journal of my travels, something to look back on or share with my children. But I thought, well, if I’m going to write about all this, why not do so to share with the world. And my non-fiction was born.

I started writing this book two years ago. It shouldn’t be taking me this long but I just finished editing my 23 chapters (299 pages as of this post) and I’m now ready to share it with publishers. It’s been a blast writing it and has been the single biggest project I’ve ever taken on. I’ve had jobs last shorter than the time I’ve spent on this.

I really hope you like it. Please let me know at brogott101@aol.com. I often wonder if what I am writing is really interesting enough for people to want to read it. Is it easy to follow along? Am I writing at a comfortable reading level for the audience? Am I wasting my time?

I’m only including bits from ten of the chapters. They don’t tell the whole story, but hopefully they show my fledgeling writing abilities. Hopefully those abilities are good enough for a publisher to share in my dream of showing the world what my life has been like for just over a year of it. Hopefully you will read these posts and yearn to read more, champion my getting the book published, and rushing out to buy it, along with your friends and family.

So on to the book, I’ll start with part of chapter one. I hope you enjoy it.

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CHAPTER 1 DEATH OF A HARLEY MAN

All good books start at the begining. While the begining of this chapter in my life started as a passion borne into the young ideals of a child, the actual story began with a job interview that took me to Chicago. It was a trial, not just an interview. It was the sort of event that I wrote about, long before I ever thought of turning my writing into a book. While I’m not going to post the part about the interview here, I thought I’d start my posts by giving you a history lesson of the beginnings of my passion.

The end of a long day had finally arrived. I was glad. I was tired. One of my employees had been working a little late and had just said good night before slipping out the back door, leaving me alone in the building. The distraction from what I had been working on was a welcome one. My desk was a mess, full of advertising material and files of work, financial statements and reports. I sat for a moment looking over it all and then swiveled my chair to face the back wall, where a model of a Boeing 737 sat on a bookshelf. It seemed out of place amongst the binders and books. But I loved to look at it.

I studied the plane and its lines, making it so aerodynamic. I looked at the miniature windows of the cockpit and could envision the white-shirted captain sitting in his seat flying it. I smiled and felt calm. I had just come off a plane the previous day, ending a three-day travel ordeal that was all still very fresh in my mind.

Needing a break, I rose from my chair and walked out of my office and onto the showroom floor. The smell of rubber mixed with gasoline and leather. The room was dark except for a few florescent safety lights that stayed on all the time. The sun had long set and through the front windows I could see a few cars go by, creating a show of white and red lights. I looked around at the motorcycles parked side by side on the slick floors. I glanced over the walls with mirrors and signs advertising Harley Credit services. To my right was the women’s MotorClothes section, to my left, the men’s. Racks of tee shirts and jeans sat full of merchandise, some of which I had personally ordered from various vendors. On the walls hung leather jackets, vests and pants. I walked back towards the office but turned left and walked to the lower half of the store.

I thought about how I had helped tear down the wall that once stood where this step was. I took a step down to the other half of the showroom and remembered the people who had tripped on that step, not realizing that it was there. That was the winter of early 1996 and we’d just opened the new store. People were not yet used to the high walls loaded with shiny merchandise, like motorcycle parts and specially painted fenders and tanks, and were distracted from watching where they were walking. It always gave me a chuckle and no one was ever really hurt. But we finally had to put in a ramp and block off the hazard with boxes of motorcycle oil and racks of clothing.

Along the front of this section was the lounge with windows that looked out onto the parking area and the street. The lounge was where customers could congregate and where the employees took breaks. It was home to the vending machines, a few tables, customer photos and a small kitchenette. When walking from the lounge towards the rear of the store, one passes the display area and then reaches the parts counter. Behind the parts counter wall is the large parts storage area with rows of shelving and a loft above for large parts storage. The walls around the display area were covered with motorcycle parts and high up, out of reach, were more fenders and gas tanks for sale. Neon lighted signs helped customers locate the parts department as they would walk into the front door. They illuminated the area in a strange red glow at night.

I now stood in this display area, with the lounge to my left and the parts counter to my right. I looked at the motorcycle accessories and the collectibles displayed neatly in cases and on the display racks. I stood there looking at everything in the darkness, taking it all in, thinking back on how I had made much of this happen.

This place had become my home and all that I had known for the past five years. I was the general manager of this Harley-Davidson dealership. I had moved here with my father in the late summer of 1995 to help him run this business. I had spent more hours in this store than I had spent at home. I had hired over 95% of the people who worked there. Over the years, I had fired many as well. Much of the inventory was either ordered by me or was signed off by me. It was my advertising and marketing skills that attracted people to shop here and it was my signature on the checks that paid our staff. The hours were long but the pay was good and I was enriched by the personal growth I had experienced over the years.

But I was starting to say goodbye to it all. Most nights I could be found there long after closing, working on marketing ideas or sales events, writing articles for our newsletter or working on reports for headquarters. Now I would often stand in the dimly lit store at night to look over it all, like an artist saying goodbye to his art before it was to be hung on someone’s living room wall.

Travel was in my blood and it was affecting me more and more. The business had switched hands in 1999. My father returned to Texas, but I stayed on to continue to run things. The new owner was mostly absentee, so my business trips almost dried up completely, and I could take it no longer. I had given notice and was searching for a new job. One that would take me all over the world. And it wasn’t until I had gotten home from that long, hard trip, just the night before, when I realized I had found that job. I chuckled to myself as I began to think about how it all started for me; this passion for flying.

I was a small boy, maybe five years old. At that age I spent a lot of time with my grandparents in Borger, a small town supporting a Phillips Petroleum refinery in the Texas panhandle. My grandfather was a company man who would eventually retire from the position of Pipeline Superintendent. Borger was often a smelly place due to the oil refinery at the north edge of town. Coming from Houston, which was so much larger and aroma-free, I always called it “Little Stinky Borger.” My grandmother said the smell was that of money. When we would pass a Phillips gas station, she would tell us to bow our heads. “That’s our bread and butter!” she would say. So she would counter me by calling it “Bigger Better Borger.” It would be a running thing between us for many, many years. Still is today, all though she now lives in Houston.

My mother would take me to the airport for my trips to Borger and would be able to walk on the airplane with me. She would make sure that I had a seat by the window, buckle my seat belt and give me a kiss goodbye. There was always a nice lady behind her smiling. I would look at the wings on her uniform and smile back. The lady would make sure my mom got off the plane before the door would close. I don’t ever remember being upset or scared and I would spend the next ninety minutes looking out the window. I loved to see the other planes, feel the speed as we took off down the runway, and watch the ground drop below until the clouds took their place.

Itsy, (that’s what I call my grandmother), tells a story of going to the airport in Amarillo to pick me up so many years ago. “And here you would come walking off that plane with that ugly, dumb rabbit under one arm…”

She was talking about Buns, my childhood security blanket. Buns was a scraggly green rabbit with long legs and ears. I took him everywhere I went, much to Itsy’s dismay, “But you took to flying on those planes back and forth like it was nothing. You always loved to fly.” Indeed, to me, it was just a normal thing, like getting in the car to go to school.

Years later, my father was living in Chicago with his third wife, Kitty. I would go to visit in the summer and in the evenings we would sit outside on the back patio when my father got home from work. He and Kitty would talk about their day and I would play with toys. They would drink gin and tonic and I would drink cherry flavored sugar water. The heat of the day was lowered to a cool breeze, which we enjoyed sitting in. Overhead flew the planes going to O’Hare International. I would always look up and watch them. Seeing this, my father would look up and name the type of plane, a 727, a DC10, a 747. I remember specifically, seeing the many bright colors of Braniff airplanes. I think they were my favorite.

When I was about nine, Dad and Kitty left Chicago and moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They had a place high in the city, near the base of Sandia Mountain. In the back yard my father had built an elaborate vegetable garden with railroad ties to keep in the dirt. At the top, and in the corner of the yard, he built a fort for me to play in on my summer visits. It was two levels high, the top being open with a railing for safety. He also fashioned a flagpole with a pulley so I could raise and lower a flag. From up there, one could see the whole city spread out below, towards the valley. But what caught my eye from up there was the airport. With binoculars I could see the terminal itself and the planes moving around on the tarmac. I would watch them fly overhead until I could see them touch down and taxi to their gate. Then I would watch others as they sped down the runway and lumbered into the air. I tried to watch them until I could no longer make them out in the huge sky.

As would most kids with a fort, I made a Jolly Roger flag for the flagpole, with black cotton for the flag, and white felt for the skull and crossbones. But I also made a second flag. This one was more simple, yet meaningful, with the letters G.A.L.O.P. My father came home from work and I showed him my new flag. When he asked what the letters meant, I told him, “Gibson Aviation Look-Out Point.” I don’t know who was more impressed with my ingenuity. I have no idea of what ever happened to that flag, but I’ve never forgotten it.

So my love for airplanes and for flying had been with me since some of my very first memories. Now I had grown used to making about twelve business trips a year with the Harley business, and then having that number dwindle to only a few. I had amassed a collection of civil airplane models, books and metal signs. And the collection grew as my passion did. I even made quick friends with several customers who were pilots. They would come into the store and I would hit them with all sorts of questions about things I saw at airports, parts of airplanes, how things worked. But I had never once thought seriously of trying to get into aviation for a living.

I left the dark showroom and returned to my desk to get on my computer. The past three days had been so amazing. I wanted to write about it so I would never forget the experience, and so my friends and family, both here in Annapolis, and back in Texas, could read about what I had just gone through.

I began to write an essay on how I had gotten my new job with a major airline. I had no idea that what I was about to write would start something that would occupy my free time for over two years and would eventually turn into this book.

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CHAPTER 2 THE COMPOUND

Training was tough, long and not without stress. There was a lot to learn. Turns out I didn’t just learn how to be a flight attendant. I learned a lot about living in close proximity to others who I normally wouldn’t sit next to. Note, many names in this book have been changed to protect the innocent. Or at least me.

The rest of training was not free from stress. Part of that was due to being surrounded by some of the same people for six weeks. Many of us had not had to share a room with three other people since college. And that was a really long time ago for some of these folks. Things were still a little stressed in our room between Drew and the rest of us, even though I continued to put on a friendly front.

At the end of week four, one of my classmates, Terri, was having her birthday. A group of us decided to head downtown to celebrate with her. We found a few bars to enjoy; when one got boring we would move to another. By the end of the evening we had been to a few bars and were feeling quite comfortable. One of the girls in our group, Aura, had gone to the bar for another drink. Terri followed her and they wound up spending a lot of time at the bar, just the two of them.

When they came back to the table, it was clear that Aura had been crying. Someone else at the table asked what the problem was and she spilled it all.

“Last week in the mockup, Drew made a demeaning sexual comment to me and slapped my ass. He knows I am married and I didn’t do anything to provoke him.” Did she tell anyone about it? “No. He’s got a family. I’ve got a family. I don’t want this to get all blown out of proportion. But I made it quite clear to him that I didn’t appreciate his advances and that if it happened again, I would kick him in the nuts.”

Apparently, Aura was not the only one at the table to feel uncomfortable with my roommate. Others had overheard him making questionable comments and felt a bit uneasy around him. The conversation turned to him for a while but as all conversations do, eventually evolved into other things. I felt badly for Aura but really thought nothing else about it. The night moved on and we eventually made our way back to the compound. My roommates were already asleep when I got back.

The next morning I went down for breakfast in the cafeteria. The room was almost empty but there were a few of my classmates sitting at one table with Drew. I started to pass them by for a table with more room, but was beckoned to join them. I hesitated, but sat down reluctantly, giving into peer pressure. I never did feel much better about Drew since that first impression, and now I felt even more distanced from him.

As soon as I sat down, I realized that everyone was leaning in towards Drew and that his eyes were red. In an instant I knew what was happening. And it would drag the entire class into an abyss for the remainder of our time at the training center.

“Aura is going around telling people that I sexually harassed her and it’s all a lie,” he said. I acted somewhat surprised. I actually was. First of all, I knew she was not going around making that false accusation. Aura was a very attractive woman. Her complexion was flawless, and her body was in perfect condition. She did not need the attention and it was quite clear to us the night before that she had dealt with it and only wanted it to go away. The only reason we knew about it was that we practically drug it out of her at the bar. And she certainly wasn’t lying.

I searched the faces at the table. There was one who was at that bar last night and I knew it was her who told him about it. I’m not going to mention names. I never have to anyone I confided in while I was in training. At this point it’s all water under the bridge and I don’t need any aggravation to come back and haunt me from training.

Drew stewed about it some more and I finally admitted that the subject had come up the night before, but I didn’t believe it was her telling people. He got up and stormed away exclaiming he was going to find her and talk to her right now.

It does nothing but get messier from here. Word got to the supervisor on duty who called the two of them up to the office. They each gave their side of the story and then were told that more would be done on Monday by our supervisor. In the meantime, neither of them was to discuss it with anyone else. I only know all of this because the first thing Drew did was to come to our room and tell me everything that happened in the supervisor’s office. The funny thing was that when he told me her side of the story, as she told it to him, it matched exactly what she had told me at the table in the bar.

What he did next would seal our fate as roommates. He asked if I was near them when the incident occurred in the mock up. I was not. I was in the other mock up on the other side of the room.

“If you get called up tomorrow and questioned, I want you to tell them that you were there and that you never saw it happen. Tell them I wasn’t even seated near her,” he told me.

I was floored. “I can’t do that, Drew. I’m not going to do that and I won’t be brought in the middle of this.” I lied. After he left the room I knocked on Aura’s door and told her what had just happened and that if I got called upstairs, I would let them know as well. This situation was getting serious and I was not going to let Drew manipulate the situation to his favor for something I felt he was, indeed, guilty of.

Drew spent the rest of that day going around telling everyone about what happened and by the time class resumed on Monday, I felt as if half of us were on his side, and the other half was on hers. The tension was noticeable and different fractions were in different corners whispering and looking around like they were guilty of talking about someone. And they were.

At one point in the afternoon I was watching planes approach ORD with my binoculars. I went to the laundry room on the other side of the building, affording me a better view of the planes. But this was also the same side of the building that the pool was on. There were quite a few people out there and I could make out Drew, surrounded by a group of people, some from our class, others were not. I looked at them through the binoculars when Christine entered the room. ‘Oh, shit,’ I thought. ‘She probably thinks I’m some pervert watching the girls at the pool.’ She didn’t say much to me and I decided to return to my room.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Christine knocked and asked to speak to me. I let her in.

“Scott,” she started. “I just wanted to tell you that I am very bothered by what you were doing just now in the laundry room.”

“Christine, I know you think I was watching people at the pool. I did see Drew down there and did look to see whom he was talking to. But the reason I was in there with my binoculars was to watch planes come in to land.”

She seemed to not quite believe me. I pointed to a model airplane sitting on my windowsill and picked up a magazine on airplanes.

“You see, I like to see what kind of plane they are. I’m totally obsessed.”

I could see that she now understood. She smiled and said she was relieved. She was thinking I was a perv. I told her that I was glad she came to see me about it instead of going around thinking that. We still laugh about it today.

The next day, my other roommate, Restie, came to me and told me that things were getting bad. He had come in late Sunday night, after I went to bed. He closed the door quietly and was slinking around the room getting ready for bed, trying not to wake us up. Drew got out of bed and said he needed to talk to him so they went to the spacious closet and turned on the light. And just as he had done with me, he asked him to lie for him about what happened in the mock up. And just as I had done, he told Drew that he would not do that. I let Restie know that the same thing happened to me and thanked him for not going along with it.

I never was called upstairs and no one ever asked me about what happened in the mock up that day. The case was dropped, which angered Aura, but she was glad to have it behind her. She never did want it brought up in the first place. She would be going to a different base and hopefully would not have to see him again. She only hoped her husband would never find out. He was the jealous type and would not take it well; he might even make her quite this job.

Things were a little tense in my room after that. Restie and I became closer and he would often tell me that he didn’t understand why Drew disliked me so much.

“You are always so nice to him, nicer than I am to him,” he would tell me with his thick accent, “even though he treats you so badly. And he’s always talking bad about you to me. I can’t stand it.”

But my being nice to him ended on the first night of our last week, week six. This was the night before we were to leave for our international training flight. One third of the class was to go to Paris, one third to London, and the rest of us to Frankfurt. Being of German heritage, this was exciting news to me. I’d never been anywhere that required me to have a passport before, so this trip was huge.

As usual, we would be paired up and would stay in a hotel with a roommate. Mine would be Drew, of course. That was just my luck. My flying partner was a girl from the other half of the class, Sarah. Everyone was very excited about going overseas the next day. All of our flights were very early in the morning. The three of us were getting ready for bed after having packed our suitcases. Drew was in bed when the phone rang. It was a friend of Restie’s from California, two time zones back. They spoke briefly and hung up.

The phone rang again and it was another call for Restie. He told the person at the other end that he was going to leave the room and call him right back. Very nice thing to do since the lights were out and we were trying to get some sleep. A short while later he returned and got in bed. The phone rang a third time. It was Sarah calling me to find out what time I was going to be in the lobby for our taxi to the airport. I gave her the information, hung the phone up and walked back over to my bed.

Drew rolled over and took the phone off the hook. At first I thought I would ignore it, but then I decided I couldn’t handle the phone being off the hook. What if someone calls? What if there is an emergency? What if his daughter was in an accident? He assured me that wouldn’t happen, that they would call on his cell phone.

“You’re not the only one in this room and I don’t think Restie wants the phone off the hook either,” I told him.

Restie didn’t say a thing. I went back to his side of the room, where the phone was, and put the hand piece back on the cradle. He tried to take it off again as I walked back to bed, so I placed the phone on the floor, out of his reach.

His reach was better than I thought and I didn’t hear him take it off again. I settled into bed and after a minute the phone started to beep obnoxiously, telling us it was off the cradle.

“Well that was a smart thing to do,” I said crossly as I got up once more to fix the problem. This time I moved the phone further away from Drew’s reach.

“Now leave the flipping phone alone.” Except I’m pretty sure I used a stronger word than flipping, but it also started with the letter F.

I got back in bed and there was silence. It lasted about three minutes. Drew started moving around. He put his leg on and got dressed and left, slamming the door behind him.

Across the room, the light went on and Restie was sitting up. “Oh, my goodness!” he said. “What was that about?”

“I don’t know. He’s just being an ass.”

“I know he is. I was so afraid for you. I thought he was going to get up and attack you! I thought he would hit you with his leg.” Restie’s amazement at what was happening was prominent in his voice. And his wry humor was timeless. “I don’t know why he has to be so rude. There are other people in here besides him.”

I simply agreed, still not sure what had set him off that way.

After about twenty minutes Drew slipped quietly back into the room and we all managed to fall asleep without hitting one another.