Air Vent: Your Headphones, Our Headache...

Serving a meal in the confines of an aircraft often feels like you are being "punked".  The task itself sounds easy enough, wheel the cart out and hand everyone a plastic tray and/or a drink.  Now...add some turbulence, the smell of stinky feet, a cart with wheels that are going in several directions, huge knees protruding out next to you, babies heads leaning into the aisle, shoulders that belong in NFL uniforms, a stray fart that no one seems to notice but you, and a plane full of increasingly distracted people wearing headphones.  Would you go through the drive-through at Mc Donald's wearing headphones?  If you did, would you take them off to order, or to talk to the person at the window while paying for your food?  Would you watch your waiter/waitress in a restaurant ask you what you wanted to order before taking off headphones?  Thought so.  So why, why, WHY, do people wearing headphones on the plane (virtually everyone that travels these days) leave them on when approached by a flight attendant, and wait until they have been asked at least twice what they'd like to drink, before removing them only to make you ask them again what they'd like?  Of course this is all precluding the ever present question of "what do you have?".  What I have...is no time to answer that question 150 times on your flight alone.  If you can't remember what you normally drink for breakfast, lunch, and or dinner, you might need to reconsider traveling alone to the living room, much less across the country.

Air Vent: Airplane Amnesia...

I have a hard time figuring out how someone could be surprised by a flight attendant in front of a three hundred pound bar/meal cart...yet it seems to happen all the time.  We are apparently very sneaky...able to serve two out of three people in a row a drink, yet catch the third completely off guard.  Not only do passengers often seem shocked to be offered a drink, they somehow have absolutely no recollection of what liquids they normally enjoy.  The green amongst us still  rattle off the beverage choices auctioneer style.  It took me a few years to wise up and realize that a short summary generates the same outcome.  "Soda, juice, water, alcoholic drinks, coffee, tea...what would you like?"  The answer?  After very careful and lengthy consideration...is almost always Coke, or water.  Amusing for a moment...until we stealthily approach the next row, and the next....and the next....

Equally perplexing to me is the dreaded barcart bump amnesia.  To have your knee slammed by a barcart hurts...I get that.  What I don't understand is how someone could be writhing in pain, shooting out curse words through their clenched teeth, then pop their knee back out in the aisle as the barcart approaches again!  In our defense, those carts are really heavy, and the wheels work about as well as they would on a fifty year old rusty shopping cart.  Add the fact that airplane aisles are shrinking as passengers are supersizing themselves to the equation and you'd have to agree that it would be in your best interest to keep that knee where airlines apparently feel it belongs...jammed into the seat in front of you.

Air Vent: Flight attendant interpretation of the airplane call button...

In the panel above each passenger seat there is a button which usually features the outlined figure of a skirt clad woman carrying a tray which holds a drink.  Completely disregard this picture.  It has no place in modern society.  Clearly, it was designed by a graphic artist who rushed home to watch the first season of "Leave it to Beaver"; his wife dutifully waiting at the door with his martini and slippers.  The "stewardess" that inspired his drawing likely had to quit in the event she was married, or had children.

In the modern-day flight attendant world, that bell above your seat could be equated with calling 911.  The general belief amongst us is that it isn't necessary to touch the call button unless we see a geyser of blood shooting from between seats, or someone is either choking- or having a heart attack.

As with any rule, there are a few exceptions.  During boarding, we'll reluctantly respond to the call bell if you need a seat belt extension, water for medication, or have the same seat assignment as another passenger.  Please restrain yourself and your children from the urge to press that button for petty reasons; such as the all important retrieval of your empty cup.  There has got to be a place around your seat where that cup could hang out for a while- perhaps a seat back pocket?  If the only place you find is on the floor, that's fine for the moment-but make sure you pick it up and hand it to us when we come by, or ninety-nine percent of us will ignore it.  We spend at least half of our careers picking up garbage- but we do have to draw the line somewhere, and the floor is pretty much it. 

Reading lights are often in the same panel as the call buttons.  Curiously, the lights generally have a drawing of a light bulb on them.  This is not a game of "Pin the Tale on the Donkey"-please look before you push.

Air Vent: First Class? And baby meets floor...

While working in a recent first class cabin full of unlikely upgrades, I stumbled upon a situation that I would like to think is odd.  Midway through the meal service I was refilling wine for a very nice couple with thick accents, when I recalled them holding a baby earlier in the flight.  Wheels started turning in my head...was there a nanny sitting in coach?   I hadn't seen them talking to anyone else on the plane.  Was it under a blanket on their laps?  Being a mother myself, curiosity got the best of me.  Before I knew it, the words "where is your baby?" had slipped out of my mouth.  "Down there", the woman replied, as confident and assured as anyone would answer had I asked where their foot was.  Down there, as it turned out, was on the floor under her seat covered in coats and surrounded by bags!  That poor baby was getting cozy with carpet that has probably never seen a vacuum run by electricity, and has played host to countless nasty, smelly feet over the years... and they had their tray tables out, just enjoying their dinner.  My response..."of course...of course it is".

Air Vent: How to ask for coffee on a plane...

Coffee, coffee, coffee...all morning long we serve coffee.  All morning long we have to ask if you want cream and sugar.  You have probably never pondered what it would be like to ask that 150 times in an hour...it's not pretty.  Why do people wait for us to ask how they want their coffee?  When they go to Starbucks do they say "I'll have coffee"...and stare comatose as if posing for the creation of their wax body double?  Do they say "coffee", then snap open their Sunday paper like an umbrella turned inside out by gale force winds?  Starbucks says there are 19,000 ways to order their coffee.  We don't have the extensive menu or flavored syrups etc., but there are still options to choose from.  Please...help conserve the nations' supply of Prozac- and inform us if your personal vision of coffee includes more than just java. 

Even worse than the newspaper in our face response is one which inspires daydreams of bodily harm.  "Black", they say- when asked how they take their coffee...apparently affected by short term memory loss as to the existence of that white substance they have shoveled into their morning beverage for twenty years.  After we have served a few more rows of passengers drinks...an inevitable tug on the sleeve or faint mutter of "Miss...Miss...(or hey...hey...) could I have some sugar?", comes wafting over the seats, landing in our ear at the precise time a whole row of drink orders has just checked in for their "short stay" in our oxygen deprived brains.  Black coffee you see, is coffee in its raw naked nothing to hide form.  Black coffee with sugar is like adding a dress- sweetener, some heels.  Nudist colony/a night on the town...get it?

Air Vent: High altitude meets high maintenance...

Hearing loss is a common hazard of our profession.  To make up for the lack of auditory aptitude, flight attendants have been afforded a special "seventh sense", that comes in handy on a daily basis.  As cave dwelling animals adapt to "see" in darkness, we develop a keen eye for high maintenance passengers; able to locate them from almost a mile away.  You know who you are...you "decaf coffee with skim milk (is it hot, is it fresh?) in a separate glass with a half packet of Equal...oh, how about an orange juice...no ice (after we bring it to you) I'll have a water as well" people.  "Oh wait...did I mention that I want that water with no ice, and in about an hour and twelve minutes?"  How did you become that way?  Did your mother teach you that...or were your first words "I want that ba-ba at 6pm warm, but not too warm, with a side of pureed peaches; not from the jar with that rosy cheeked baby on it, but freshly plucked from the tree (when the sun sets over the big scoop in my sandbox) and mashed by hand for approximately twenty minutes."  When she brought it to you, did you say "oh, and I'd like a hand mashed cooked carrot as well, but not right now, in a few minutes after my mobile makes five more rotations."

If you are in denial that I might be talking about you, try asking yourself the following questions...

1.  Do you always insist on a bulkhead seat?
2.  Do you often ring your call button to have an empty plastic cup picked up?  (This also applies to a napkin, shred of paper, or an atom that you split during the flight.)
3.  Do you wait until the hungry flight attendant serving you has finished their work for a moment, and the tip of their fork approaches their lips, to ask for a newspaper, blanket, or bottle of water?
4.  Do you walk onboard and dangle your coat like bait on a fishing pole- expecting someone with ten things in their hands to snap it up for immediate closet stowage?
5.  Do you ask for three or more drinks at one time?
6.  Do you order special meals for reasons other than medical?
7.  Do you come to the rear (or front) of the aircraft during boarding and ask for a glass of water for a pill (palm open, pill displayed)?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are high maintenance and/or annoying to people who deal with you.  Might I suggest a reality trip to a third world country as your next vacation.