Around the World in a Bad Mood!

by Rene Foss

  Although we all felt sad for Bitsy, the loss seemed to give her a renewed interest in her flying career. She decided to replace each and every one of those lost mugs and even to add new mugs to the collection. “The phrase ‘meaningful employment’ has significance for me now. This has helped me find purpose in my job, my raison d’être. Finally, I have a career goal! I think I am going to pull through,” she said as she wiped away her tears and applied a fresh coat of lipstick.

  Unleashed Gluttony

  IT IS NO WONDER we have an obesity epidemic in this country. Instead of trying to assuage the hunger of their souls with something meaningful and significant, people seem to choose to satisfy it with extra-large Diet Cokes, sugary doughnuts, greasy hamburgers, potato chips, and anything else that gives instant gratification and temporary fulfillment. Nowhere is this more apparent than on an airplane where you a have a cross section of society.

  FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Hello, can I get you a beverage?

  PASSENGER: Yes, I’ll have a can of tomato juice, a bottle of water, and two cups of coffee with cream and sugar.

  FLIGHT ATTENDANT: Are you ordering for the whole row?

  PASSENGER: No, that’s just for me. . . . I’m kind of thirsty.

  FLIGHT ATTENDANT: I guess. Anything else?

  PASSENGER: Yeah, now that you mention it, I’ll have a can of apple juice for later.

  In addition to the rampant gluttony, I have also noticed that a great many people are completely unaware of anyone or anything else around them. I guess it’s what you might call complete and total self-absorption. Recently, a passenger went in between two beverage carts while trying to get to his seat. Instead of recognizing that he was causing the flight attendants a lot of difficulty in serving the other passengers, he just stood there with his headphones on, doing some kind of Tai Chi stretches in the aisle.

  Early in my career I witnessed a wonderful payback that illustrates the overall consciousness of certain people on the planet these days. A flight attendant was walking down the narrow aisle of the aircraft and she was carrying a stack of about six dirty dinner trays—one on top of the other—back to the galley. A very large passenger was walking up the aisle, and as he tried to navigate around the flight attendant he said, “Hey, get me a Coke, will ya? I’m thirsty.” Without missing a beat, the flight attendant answered, “Oh, you need a Coke, do you? Well here, hold these and I’ll be glad to get you one.” With that she handed him the dirty trays and then very slowly walked back to the galley and poured him his drink.

  Airline food has been the butt of many jokes over the years. People make fun of its quality, color, taste (or lack thereof), but as soon as you take it away people miss it! People used to complain about the food choices we offered: “All you have are three choices?! And all of them terrible! My God, what is the world coming to?” Then as we incurred some cutbacks and started giving everyone the same meal, people were downright appalled: “You mean everyone is getting the chicken? This is horrifying, I can’t believe I don’t have a goddamn choice!” To that fine gentleman I replied, “But sir, you do have a choice: eat or don’t.” Now, as cost-cutting measures continue, we have not only eliminated the choice, but on certain flights we’ve eliminated the meal service altogether.

  Just the other day a passenger reamed me out about the fact that there was no meal service on a one-hour flight at two in the afternoon. “What kind of cheap-ass airline is this anyway?” he inquired.

  “One of the finest,” I said. He didn’t appreciate my humor (they never do), and so I will now take this opportunity to address the food situation and hopefully put an end to all the malarkey about airline cuisine. Airlines are in the transportation business, not the restaurant business! The primary reason they put food on airplanes in the first place was to occupy the passengers during long flights when commercial air travel was new to the world. They should have put in libraries instead, but no, somebody had to come up with the idea of serving six-course meals. There have been many noble attempts over the years to create the impression of a five-star dining experience at thirty-nine thousand feet: regional variations, world-renowned chefs, elegant china, and the dreaded “special” meal. But these days it’s more about logistics, portion control, and profit margin than fine dining—and everybody is pissed! Simply put, fine “whining” has replaced fine dining. When the airline tells you they’ll be serving a five-course meal, it means an apple, a granola bar, cheese, crackers, and a mint in a paper bag.

  The best way to handle this unfortunate reality is to lower your expectations. You might even try the self-reliance thing—you know, carrying a small supply of food with you. One would never go into a fine restaurant in New York City, consume a meal, and then expect to walk out of the restaurant and be in Chicago. The same should be true for the in-flight dining experience: As a passenger you are paying for transport from here to there, not for the bologna sandwich that we throw in your face. Try to think of the food as a sideshow, not the main attraction. I know the commercials tell you everything is going to be grand, but the truth is that you will be happier if you expect less and bring something of your own, just in case you don’t like what we’re serving (if we are serving anything at all). Also, most decent airports have improved their concourses and feature a pretty good selection of food. Personally, I try to bring my own food or to eat before I arrive rather than eat the plane food. Naturally, there are exceptions. If you have a close connection or a very long flight you might have to eat what is served on the plane. It won’t kill you, but just remember: The flight attendants didn’t plan the menu, prepare the food, or forget to put the food on the plane . . . they just serve it! So if you don’t like it write a letter to the chef.

  This brings me to another thing that has been “eating” at me for some time now; the special-meal protocol. As you may or may not know, airlines offer special meals for those passengers with special dietary needs. You can order them when you purchase your ticket. We don’t have them on board unless you order them in advance, and sometimes even then we don’t have them. Now, if you order a special meal it means that’s what you will be served, it does not mean you have a choice of the special meal or whatever the unspecial meal is for all the unspecial people on board. Bottom line, you cannot order a vegetarian, kosher, or fruit-plate special meal and then ask if you can also have the regular meal. Sorry, but there’s usually only enough food available for each passenger to have one meal.

  Sometimes passengers who have ordered special meals try to act as if they are not the special person who ordered the special meal, just so they can have the standard meal. In this case, some poor slob gets stuck eating the liar’s special meal or a few bags of lousy peanuts instead of the meal that is rightfully his. This will bring bad karma to you and it is recommended that if you go to the trouble of ordering a special meal that you eat it. Besides, we generally have a list of who ordered what and which seat they’ve been assigned. In other words, we can find you! I mention this because lately I’ve noticed an increase in the number of special meals on board; it seems that more and more people are ordering them, only to discover that the standard fare is the better fare. It really is getting out of hand—the other day I had nineteen special meals on board a breakfast flight! The only difference was that the vegetarian meal got peanut butter for the bagel rather than cream cheese. Not very special if you ask me! I think airlines should impose a small surcharge for ordering a special meal; that way only the people who really have to have a special meal would order one. Or better yet, get rid of the meal service altogether—I mean everyone seems to hate the food so much anyhow!

  Ah, the meal service is such a chore, and everyone is miserable while it is happening. First of all, the poor passengers cannot get up because the cart completely blocks the aisle. Second, the flight attendant to passenger ratio makes it difficult to serve everyone in a timely manner. Third, it always seems that as soon as we pull the carts into the aisle we hit a patch of surprise turbulence that makes
it all the more difficult to pour coffee. In the best interests of the traveling public I have compiled a list of ways that might help make the meal service a bit more bearable, at least for the flight attendants:

  1. When ordering a drink—and God knows you’ll probably need one after running through the airport, then being stuffed into a metal tube so crowded that it resembles a flying can of sardines, after which you’ll be told that you will be sitting on the ground for at least an hour before takeoff—please try to have the exact change, or at least small bills. Once, a woman gave me a twenty-dollar bill for a vodka that cost $4.00 at 7:00 A.M. in the morning. I didn’t have the change and could not find it anywhere else, so I suggested she buy four more vodkas and we’d be even. She informed me that if she consumed five vodkas, she’d be drunk as a hoot owl. I pointed out that she didn’t have to consume them on the plane during this particular flight. Instead she could take them with her and keep them in her purse. After all, when traveling these days you never know when you might need a little nip. She thought that was a wonderful idea and gave me another twenty and bought ten bottles. I’m sure this type of salesmanship is contributing to the downfall of our national moral character, selling people things that they don’t need and that have an adverse impact on the individual, but sometimes it’s every man for himself. I’ve also had people give me a big bill, say a fifty, and I’ve had to take a few moments to go locate their change. If I’m not back in ten minutes they start inquiring as to my whereabouts with the other flight attendants. “Where is the brown-haired stewardess, the one in the bad mood? I gave her fifty dollars a long time ago and she hasn’t come back.” One time I was flying with a real wiseacre and she said, “Oh, you mean Rene. She took your cash and ran out the back door somewhere over Montana.”

  2. If you’re seated next to someone who rings the call button and summons the flight attendant because she’d like a cup of coffee, and you suddenly think that you’d like one too, don’t hold it inside! Tell the flight attendant while he is there. Don’t be shy, just blurt it right out: “I would like a cup of coffee too, please!” This way he can bring two cups of coffee in one trip. If you wait until he returns and then ask him if you could have a cup of coffee, he may kill you!

  3. If you must set your meal tray on the floor because you have to return to your laptop, please have the courtesy to pick up the tray and hand it to the flight attendant when she comes through for garbage collection, rather than making the flight attendant bend down to pick up your dirty tray from the floor.

  4. Never tap or poke a flight attendant. I have come home with bruises from passengers poking me in order to get my attention, even though I am standing there right next to them. One time a gentleman poked me in the rear end in order to get my attention, and I damn near hauled off and hit him. But I refrained and instead poked him back when it was time for me to answer his inquiry. Yes, it is loud on the plane with the engine noise, but most of us can hear and do respond to the following phrases: “Excuse me,” “Pardon me,” or even the simple “Sir,” “Ma’am,” or “Miss.” There is also that trusty call button located above your seat, right next to the reading light. So, poking or tapping your flight attendant is completely unnecessary.

  5. Manners and common courtesy go a long way in an overcrowded airplane. Saying “please” and “thank you” make a world of difference, and you’d be surprised how many people neglect their importance.

  6. When walking about the cabin it is advisable to wear your shoes. Especially if you are taking a trip to the lavatory. I have seen a great many people going in there barefoot. I’d like to state for the record, particularly for all of you who practice this disgusting habit, that the fluid on the floor in the bathroom isn’t always water, if you know what I mean.

  7. If you are interested in “seconds” (hard to believe, but true), wait until everyone on the plane has had “firsts.”

  The last thing I’d like to remind people is that the flight attendants, just like waiters, are the last ones to touch your food or beverage before you consume it. Keep this in mind at all times and bon appétit!

  Summer Sale

  FOUR YEARS HAD PASSED and by now, Bitsy and I had acquired a little more seniority and a bit more panache. We considered ourselves real New Yorkers and had a scam going with the studio: We had different people coming and going and had almost reduced our rent to nothing. Not only that, but we were starting to enjoy the free travel benefits. I’d taken some pretty fancy vacations to Greece, Paris, Rome, and Frankfurt, and felt, well, very cosmopolitan. Bitsy, too, was becoming quite well known in certain New York social circles and was being invited to some pretty swanky affairs. Of course, it was always a problem trying to bring a date home. I mean, first I had to drag him into a one-room apartment, which is bad enough, but when I arrived at our one-room apartment, I never quite knew what to expect. There might be someone washing her uniform in the bathtub (saves on dry-cleaning), or there might be another couple on the futon already in the middle of a romantic moment, or you could walk in to find four women sprawled out asleep at 8:30 on a Saturday night because they all had a 4:00 check-in the following morning. In any case it was always a surprise and usually a lot of fun, plus it was a good way to get a character reading on your date. The guy could either roll with the punches or he couldn’t, and we had no use for the poor chaps who couldn’t.

  However, some of the happiest times I recall were when it was just us girls sitting around, drinking coffee in the morning, rehashing the events of our latest trips. There were always the common complaints like late flights, full flights, canceled flights, and so forth. Then there were more dramatic occurrences, like when a flight attendant came to work for her India trip with a small cut on her finger, and after working in the germ-ridden galley for a few hours she began to notice that her thumb was turning red and was about three times its normal size. In addition to that she was running a fever, and then she noticed a red streak running up her arm. The crew paged for a doctor, and the only doctor on board was a Japanese man who spoke very little En­glish. There was another passenger who was available to act as a translator, and by then the flight attendant was lying down on the floor of the cockpit, into which were crowded the Japanese doctor and an Indian passenger who spoke Indian, Japanese, and English, as well as the three pilots trying to fly the plane. The doctor had given her some sort of fast-acting antibiotic that he just happened to have in his carry-on luggage. The captain was trying to determine if an emergency landing was necessary, but it was decided that the antibiotic was working well enough to land as scheduled and take the flight attendant to the emergency medical clinic in the airport. By now her thumb was swollen as big as a grapefruit and it was very tender, but her fever was gone and the red streak was disappearing. Upon arrival in India the Japanese doctor escorted the flight attendant to the clinic, which was really just a room next to customs that had an old-fashioned faded yellow curtain that pulled closed, offering the illusion of privacy. It was there that the Japanese doctor informed the Indian translator, who in turn informed the flight attendant, that the doctor would now perform a procedure to release the “poison.” With that the doctor pulled out a sharp, blunt instrument that resembled an ice pick—in fact, we believe it was an ice pick. “Hey, wait, aren’t you going to, like, clean that thing first?” cried the flight attendant. “You can’t just jab a dirty ice pick into my thumb, and you gotta give me something to numb my hand. It hurts just to look at it, let alone stab it!” There was a lot of conversation between the doctor and the translator, but the final verdict was that our suffering flight attendant must “bear the pain.”

  “Hey, this is the nineties, and people don’t bear pain anymore. Tell him I don’t want to bear the pain. I’ll wait until I get back home, thanks just the same, man!”

  The doctor agreed to sterilize the ice pick and after doing so he approached his victim, who was feeling a bit woozy and being held up by the Indian translator, with great precision. Without warning
he plunged the ice pick into the wounded, tender thumb. A sudden, piercing cry, which was rumored to be heard at the Taj-Mahal, followed the procedure. As you can see, being a flight attendant is not a career choice for the faint of heart.

  Not every story was so dramatic, and sometimes they had not been experienced firsthand, but had just been heard about from someone else or read about in the newspaper. For example, you’ve probably heard the one about the pig; yes, pigs do indeed fly, and first class at that! The story goes that someone brought along their hog for a trip. He wasn’t just any ordinary hog, though, he was a “therapeutic companion”—sort of like those assist dogs you might see guiding a disabled person. Because he was considered a service animal and the passenger had a note from the doctor, the pig was allowed to come along for the ride sans cage or restraints. Apparently, the poor pig didn’t fare so well on the descent and by the time they were taxiing to the terminal he went bananas and was reported to have run through the cabin squealing, snorting, and trying to bust in on the boys up front. Actually, that doesn’t seem all that unusual to me. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen quite a bit of squealing and snorting on many flights over the course of my career. I guess I’ve finally come to understand why it is that airline personnel worldwide dread these two words: “Summer Sale.”

  The Golden Age

  THERE IS DEFINITELY an absence of glamour in the airline industry these days, but that wasn’t always the case. There was a time (before deregulation, the current hub and spoke system, air rage, and the overall cynicism pervading the industry) when graciousness and gentility reigned. The following is taken from an airline promotional brochure from the 1950s, when the industry was young.