The In-Flight Cabin Air(head) Sample
I used to be a flight attendant. For some reason, people always seem to think this is the most interesting thing about me. I know it's because people believe this is a flight attendant:
When actually this is a flight attendant:
Disappointed? It's tough to be sexy in clogs, polyester and a name tag. Give me a break.
Anyway, in initial training, we were warned about those no-good horny pilots and all their nasty tricks. They would tell a new girl the keys to the plane were under the captain's seat and then enjoy a full rear view as she crawled around on the floor looking for them. (Just in case any of you are about to Google it, I'll save you some time. There are no plane keys.)
Or they would tell her to look through the "telescope" in the flight deck, up above their seats. Just keeeeep looking, you'll see it...while we take a niiiice look down your shirt. Oh, you couldn't see anything through the "telescope?" That's probably because it's a reading light.
For some reason a lot of the guys I flew with loved to announce over the PA that I might look very familiar...because I had been a contestant on last season's American Idol. And instantly everyone recognized me from the show. Which I was never on. It was awesome spending entire flights refusing requests to sing Whitney Houston ballads to entire planes full of people. Seriously, that never got old. Never.
Or the pilot would announce that he had asked me to marry him, but my answer depended solely upon his landing. After we landed I would have to say, "Well, it looks like this marriage is off to a rough start" or something equally lame. Nyuk nyuk. And then all the women would cheer and congratulate me on their way out. Gag.
But wait. The worst?
One captain rang me during flight to inform me that there was a new procedure involving testing the cabin air quality. There were supposed to be test tubes provided on every aircraft, for every flight, and they had to be turned into headquarters for analysis. But I couldn't find any test tubes. Imagine that. So without missing a beat, he told me that was all right; I could just use a sick sack. All I had to do was collect a sample of air in the from the front, middle and back of the cabin. Holy crap, I'm so glad I realized something was off just in the knick of time, before I went swooping down the plane aisle capturing air in a barf bag.