Fasten Your Seat Belts and Eat Your Fucking Nuts

by Joe Thomas

  I will go on record and state that I am shocked I was not terminated during my first six months as a flight attendant. Sick calls were my best friend and at my airline if you found yourself with six of them within a twelve month period, you were rewarded with a face-to-face meeting with your supervisor.

  My supervisor, Myron Scarry, sat next to me shaking his head while tapping my name into his laptop. He reminded me of the fifth Golden Girl, Antigua, the one evicted for leaving her flat iron on and burning down Dorothy’s bathroom. "Joseph. Joseph. Joseph,” at least he knew my name, “what are we going to do with you?" I stared at him until he finished questioning me. I thought about crying but we were obviously both bottoms, so crying would get me nowhere.

  Before I go any further, let me rewind back to the day prior and what ultimately led me to this meeting with Antigua… I mean Myron.

  I was a bad reserve. Really, really bad. I am not exaggerating. I called in sick for everything. I didn’t even have to address myself when I called Crew Scheduling; they had my telephone number programmed into the caller ID. I called in sick if I had a hangnail. Okay, that was an exaggeration, but in all honestly, I was quite the drama queen.

  Crew Scheduling assigned me a two day trip with a layover in Charlotte. I had been to Charlotte a few times and the fear that this was Billy Graham country had subsided. During my first layover, I didn’t want to let on that I was a homosexual so I used made-up sign language and kept my mouth shut. I didn’t log onto any porn sites, which was the hardest part, and I said, “Thank you, Jesus,” whenever I passed a Charlatan. Even if I found out their name was Bob or Loretta, I still looked up and prayed to the sky. While driving to the hotel we traveled along Billy Graham Parkway, which I was shocked to find out was an actual real highway. They have a fucking Billy Graham Parkway in Charlotte? I got off as quickly as possible. Thankfully, I had wet wipes in my tote bag. Get your minds outta the gutter, I am talking about getting off the highway. The wet naps were for the cream I squirted on my shirt from my airport doughnut.

  This Charlotte trip had a late report time with only one quick flight from JFK. After waking up early, doing laundry, and picking up some nonsense items at the Queens Mall Target, Evan and I headed back to the crash pad so I could get ready to leave for the airport. One of the best things about being friends with Evan—and sharing a crash pad with him—was that he was the only person who had a car. When he went to Target, we all went to Target. It was the most exciting thing to do in Queens after running from muggers when leaving the J train. While we drove back to the pad I pulled up my schedule on my iPhone to see if my flight was on time. That was not out of the ordinary when flying out of JFK; flights are rarely on time. I punched in the information and was surprised to find out that my flight was canceled.

  "What should I do?" I asked Evan while we drove down Queens Boulevard.

  "Call Crew Scheduling to see what they are going to do with you."

  "I hope they release me. I want to go home.”

  Evan continued driving, “Of course you do.” He was over my complaining and bad attitude.

  Calling Crew Scheduling was equal to me calling Irene when she was hitting the Budweiser cans too hard. The conversation never went well, there was always frustration—on my part—and I always hung up never wanting to call again.

  After four rings a stern voice answered the phone, “Crew Scheduling. This is Devon.”

  Perky as a set of tits on ice I responded, "Hi, this is Joe Thomas, #01972.

  "How can I help you?"

  "My flight today is canceled. What do I do now?" This was my first cancellation. I had no understanding of how Crew Scheduling planned on abusing my testicles. I was hoping for a nice slow squeeze, or maybe a lick or two, not a steel-toed stomping.

  "Please hold," and within a second, Celine Dion came on singing, “…And that's the way it is.”

  I should have taken that as a sign. One thing I knew about Crew Scheduling was they had no clue about what the fuck they were doing. Monkeys throwing paint at the wall could manage that department better than the twits answering the phones. I know that’s harsh but it only took calling them once to come to that conclusion. These schedulers could have the flight attendant manual opened to the exact page and paragraph of the situation at hand and they would still—always and forever—place you on hold. I never understood that. It could be as simple as verifying a report time or as difficult as confirming a hotel change. Every question held the same importance which involved placing the caller on hold. What they were doing on hold was a mystery. Conversing with demons? Selling their soul to the devil? I would not be surprised.

  A moment later Devon’s husky voice came over my speaker, "Joe?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “The Charlotte's flight has been canceled.” They loved stating the obvious, “You have been reassigned to do a Port-au-Prince turn this evening with a 2030 (8:30 p.m.) report time."

  What did that mean? Thoughts raced through my head as the silence on the phone became awkward. A Port-au-Prince turn? What the hell was that about? I had an easy trip assigned to me with one leg to Charlotte and then one leg to the hotel and into bed.

  "Is that a red-eye turn?”

  “Yes. You will report off at o715 (7:15 a.m.) tomorrow morning.”

  “I've been up since eight o’clock this morning. I can't work all night."

  His frustration was escaping through the phone, “You are good for two days, Joe, this is a legal trip. You have to work it."

  "I-I can't work all night. I was assigned one leg to Charlotte tonight. That’s what I am prepared to work.” Evan looked over at me while we were stopped at a red light. I’d rather face Billy Graham’s congregation than work a red-eye flight.

  Devon took a deep sigh; instantly I knew my ass was in trouble. “You are on reserve. You can be reassigned to work anything we need you to work. Are you refusing the trip?" He asked point blank.

  This was some serious shit. Refusals were bad. You were basically telling the airline, that took you over the other 10,000 applicants, that you were not working an assignment. I couldn't get a refusal, especially on reserve, but I was damn sure not working all fucking night. I was also wracking my brain with the question, where the hell was Port-au-Prince? Puerto Rico? Jamaica? Argentina? I didn’t really care because my ass wouldn’t be going there anytime soon.

  "No.” I had to think quick as Evan turned right onto Lefferts Avenue, “I'm fatigued."

  "You can't be fatigued because you haven't worked yet."

  Shit! Damn them and their specifics. "Then I'm sick."

  "Alright. I will remove you sick. Please follow up with your supervisor before your next trip."

  Evan parallel parked in front of our apartment, .”What happened?” Not letting me answer he continued, “Oh my god. You’re crazy, girl. I can’t believe you’re not working the trip.”

  “I can’t work all night.” I was brave on the outside but shitting myself on the inside. I could not believe it either. What the fuck was I doing? Jeopardizing my job because I did not want to work a flight. I quickly thought about how other companies react to their employees not completing tasks assigned. Do people get fired from McDonald’s if they refuse to salt the fries? Me thinks so.

  “I will follow up with Myron this week,” I opened the car door and squeezed myself out, “Looks like I am off tonight—let’s go to the Kew Club for some drinks.”

  Never to turn down an opportunity to party, Evan was up for it, “Now you’re talking. Let’s put our shit away and get us some drinks.” We both laughed walking up the stairs and he continued, “I need to flirt with boys.”

  When I woke up the next morning, with a headache and dry mouth, I was greeted with an assignment to work an Orlando turn and a voicemail message from Myron. He was requesting my presence in his office before I reported for my trip. Stress consumed me for the rest of the afternoon and no matter how I played out our conversation it ended with me being t
erminated. Fuck. Why didn’t I just work the flight to Port-au-Prince? A Port-au-Prince flight from JFK couldn’t be all that bad, could it? I packed my overnight bag, grabbed my flight attendant manual, and left the crash pad thinking I’d never return. That actually put a smile on my face. I hated that place. With no room to carry all my belongings, I told Evan to ship them to me or give them to a less fortunate reserve when someone moved in to replace me. I figured with how quickly Kader worked I would pass my replacement on the stairs leaving the building.

  “Queen. You will be back,” he tapped away at his laptop, “You are so ridiculous.”

  The Q10 bus pulled up to Terminal 4 and I was practically vomiting up my peanut butter sandwich in my mouth. It tasted much better going down. I popped an Altoid so TSA wouldn’t think I was spreading chemical gas through the airport and started to the crew lounge. Our flight attendant crew lounge was secretly hidden from view. Probably a good thing. No need for passengers to hear the cries of terminated flight attendants throughout the terminal. It was located behind one of the gates and the only way to get through was to show our crew ID to the gate agent working that gate. It was like entering the Gryffindor common room, but instead of a fat lady singing, there was a fat gate agent yelling. Gate agents yell about everything. I don’t know how they keep their jobs. Probably because if the airline fired gate agents for yelling, there would be no gate agents and passengers would run amok. When I stepped into the crew lounge there were a few lonely souls reclined in the overstuffed chairs watching television. It was quiet. I barely had a second to remove my tote bag from my shoulder and put it down when I heard Myron’s voice echo through the lounge. “Joseph! Please join me for a moment.”

  Was big black brother watching? The answer was yes. He materialized out of the wall without warning to call me out in front of the flight attendants in the lounge. Maybe this was more like Hogwarts than I had first imagined. The few flights attendants planted in their chairs stretched their necks to see who Joseph was. That made me extremely uncomfortable. It also made me dislike Myron even more. I made a mental note to trip him if I ever saw him at a gay pride parade.

  Walking into the office lined with cubicles was unsettling. I followed behind him like I did when I was young and ready to receive the belt from my father; head down and thinking of how I could get out of it. He sat down first and began tapping his stubby chocolate fingers at his laptop computer, “Joseph. Joseph. Joseph. What are we going to do with you?” He glanced up at me, “How are you feeling? Better, I hope.”

  He was playing mind games with me; I was sure of it. He knew I wasn’t sick. Crew Scheduling records all telephone calls and if he was as thorough as he was playing himself out to be—he had memorized my conversation and was ready to recite it at any moment. I pulled up a chair and placed it to the side of his desk. I sat down, “I am fine. What do we need to talk about?”

  “I’m looking over your sick calls and yesterday was your sixth one. Your sixth sick call. Did you know that?”

  “Really?” I was playing dumb. New hire TSA employee dumb. Actually, any TSA employee dumb, “What does that mean?

  “Well, Joseph, you are allowed five sick calls per year,” he reached for a file folder and removed a tri-folded piece of paper handing it to me, “and this is your sixth. What that means is you’re going on disciplinary action.”

  Disciplinary action? That sounded nothing like termination. Evan was right; I’d buy him a few beers at the Kew Club the next time I was at the crash pad. The hairs on my neck settled back down onto my skin and I felt this surge of excitement in my stomach. It could have been the need to take a shit, too. I am like a puppy when I get excited. I opened the tri-fold paper and glanced over it, “I get sick. I was a nurse for 15 years and I was sick a lot my first year.”

  He stared through me with his bulging eyes. It was awkward but I kept talking. Could he possibly have X-ray vision? Maybe his eyes bulged because he spent so many years willing clothes off skinny twink flight attendants. Either way, I was using my medical background to talk over him and hopefully confuse the shit out of him. “These things happen in this type of environment. Being around sick people or stuck in an airplane. It happens.”

  He exhaled, “That may be, Joseph, but you still have six sick calls and we have to document this. Have you thought about another job? Maybe this isn’t the job for you.”

  I felt that surge again. This time I knew I had to shit. I had to wrap this conversation up before I was terminated for a gassing everyone in the supervisor’s office. “This is the job for me. I’m sure of it.” I wanted to ask him if being a supervisor was the job for him but I went a different route, “Are you saying I am not allowed to get sick?”

  “You can get sick. If you are sick, you call in sick. I’m not telling you that you can’t call in sick.”

  “But you told me I’d be in trouble.”

  “Yes. If you call in sick six times in a year.”

  “So I shouldn’t call in sick?” I wanted him to tell me I wasn’t allowed to call in sick. I don’t know why I needed that information but it was the answer I was searching for.

  “If you are sick, you call in. That is that.”

  “That makes no sense.” I grabbed a pair of scissors from on his desk. What persuaded me to grab a blunt deadly object the moment my supervisor was placing me on disciplinary action, I couldn’t begin to tell you, but I needed to have something to fiddle with and those scissors were in hands reach.

  “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them.” He grimaced, “You aren’t gonna stab me with them there scissors are you, Joseph?” I smirked and then quickly put them back on his desk. Myron took them and placed them in a drawer furthest from me.

  Without saying anything more about the scissors, he pulled out two pieces of paper stapled together from the file folder. He handed me the papers, “Please read this over and sign it on the bottom. Don’t forget to date it. I will make you a copy.”

  The document was a list of things that I could not do while on disciplinary action. Violating any of the bullet points would result in the escalation of my disciplinary action. I took it from him and started to sweat.

  My eyes quickly scanned over my six month action plan:

  • Joseph cannot call in sick more than two more times

  • Joseph cannot join any work related groups or committees

  • Joseph cannot transfer to another department

  My heart sank and I stopped at the third bullet point. I almost sharted in my polyblend uniform pants, “Will this prevent me from transferring to another base?”

  “No. You can still transfer.” He was excited to tell me that. Myron wanted nothing more than to transfer me as far away from him as possible. The feeling was mutual. Did we have a flight attendant base in Antarctica? I’d probably look good in a caribou hide.

  I signed the form and placed it on his desk. He smiled. I didn’t. I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. My report time was a few minutes away and I still had to unload this carry on that was about to bust out of my anal sphincter.

  “Joseph, let me make you a copy.”

  “Just put it in my file,” I stood up and moved the chair back to its original location, “I have to get ready for my report.”

  “Oh. I almost forgot to tell you,” he stood to shake my hand, “Crew Scheduling called me to modify your pairing and you are now doing a later trip.” While he looked down at his handwritten note I pulled out my cell phone to see that I had missed a call. Must have been while I was going through TSA. He continued with an evil grin, “Looks like you are going to Port-Au-Prince tonight.”

  Myron’s hateful grin convinced me he experienced schadenfreude whenever the opportunity presented itself to make a flight attendant’s life miserable; which I believed was every single fucking day of his life.

  The Crazy Bacardi Lady

  I was positioned in the middle of the airplane preparing to deliver the inflight safety demonstrat
ion when my eyes focused on the lady seated in 16B. I will call her Bonnie. How she slipped past me during boarding, I will never know.

  Bonnie’s hair was disheveled, her face smudged with dirt, and she was sporting an oversized brown winter jacket. A jacket three times too large. If it were January in New York City, it might not be bizarre, but this was August in Houston. It was blazingly hot. Standing outside for even five minutes was equivalent to being placed under a broiler. If she spent mere seconds outside in that jacket she would cook faster than a tilapia.

  Her jacket was the first red flag. My instinct told me something was batty about Bonnie but I ignored my gut. In all honesty, I thought the angst in my belly was from the fried pickles I ate the night before. The checkered flag came down as I commenced the pre-flight safety demonstration. I pulled the life vest over my head and she mimicked my every movement from her aisle seat. I lost my focus on the cabin. It didn’t stop with the life vest. Watching Bonnie was mesmerizing as she put an imaginary oxygen mask up to her lips and sucked the air through it. Did I look like that while I conducted the oxygen mask demo? Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I hoped not. If I looked like that while sucking anything I would never put a dick in my mouth again.

  We were on a smaller airplane with a 2x2 seat configuration. It’s my favorite type of airplane because the lack of middle seat usually makes for content airline passengers. Sitting next to Bonnie in 16A was Cole; a tall, juicy, and an incredibly handsome Navy lieutenant. How did I know he was a lieutenant? Because, besides being an overly aggressive top who liked to make me oink like a piglet, lieutenant was his official position in the sexual fantasy I created while walking down the aisle towards row 16. He was most likely an ensign but if my sexually deviant mind promoted him, then so be it. Cole had a buzz cut, chiseled jaw, and was decked out in his military fatigues. He was the entire package. A package I was going to unwrap with my eyes as I made my way down the aisle. As I approached his row, my semi went completely flaccid as my eyes moved from Cole to Bonnie. Squashed against the airplane window, Cole looked terribly uncomfortable. It was my duty as an American citizen to move him to another seat—a more comfortable and spacious seat far from Bonnie. That proves I will do anything for my country, even in the great state of Texas, where my marriage was not legal at the time.