So, is this your normal route?

After I finished my last blog, I had an extremely disturbing realization. Some of my most interesting, or should I say…bizarre… stories from the airplane are not about passengers. They are about other flight attendants.

It really is no surprise to me that, for many people, the profession is full of mystique. Another non-surprising fact, however, is the number of flight attendants on Prozac. People always raise an eyebrow when I tell them what I do for a living. And then the questions begin.

1) So…is this your normal route?
2) So…where are you based at?
3) So…do you have to pay for your hotel rooms?
4) So…I’ve always wanted to be a flight attendant, do you think I could do it?
5) So…I bet you have lots of funny stories about passengers, don’t you?
6) So…what mountain is that?

It’s like we are this highly secretive club, and no one is allowed to know the deep, dark secrets of the flight attendant sister/brotherhood. This is partly true. We do have our deep, dark secrets. And, I will let you in on one of our biggest. There is a large group of flight attendants that are crazy. They aren’t right in the head. And, who knows, they could be serving you your drink…

I think it is important for everyone to realize that about 95% of the time the people that I am working with are strangers. I have just met them. Or, perhaps I have worked with them once before, like 4 years ago. So, it should seem a little odd that I would work with someone who would pull out a photo album of himself working out at the gym. This happened, and then he proceeded to pull out these hand-blown glass beads strung together to make a necklace…think Flintstones. They were more like smooth rocks…very neanderthal. And, he was trying to sell them to me. This same flight attendant also would strip down to his undershirt the moment he got off the plane. I guess he just didn’t care for the uniform.

Then there is the flight attendant who wears plastic dishwashing gloves to serve her drinks. Or, the flight attendant who literally disappears during flights. He will actually slip into a row of seats, sometimes even crawling over passengers to sit at the window seat and stare out the window. There is another flight attendant who has a little photo book full of pictures of her, unsuspecting sleeping passengers, and a little Chucky doll. I must admit that it is funny, but, unusual still the same.

I could go on and on, but it doesn’t paint a positive picture of mental health for the aviation industry…and I don’t want to be responsible for scaring you from flying. That’s why I will refrain (for now anyway) from telling you just how crazy some of the pilots are…

Oh yes, this is my normal route and that is Mt. DILLIGAF (Do I Look Like I Give A Fuck) down there.