Cruising Attitude

force.

“Whoa, cowboy.” I laughed, hoping he’d get the hint. He didn’t.

Cowboy didn’t stop there. It got worse, much worse. Unfortunately there is nothing in our training manual about what to do when a fellow crew member purposefully rams a cart into a passenger’s seat and yells, “Bitch!”

“Oh my God, are you okay? I’m so sorry,” I stammered to the woman now doubled over in pain. I looked at Mike. “What are you doing?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, his eyes bugged out of his head and his face turned red. In the middle of the aisle, surrounded by 123 passengers, he screamed out another, worse word. At me. I think.

The rest of the trip was spent frantically trying to calm down a few passengers, reassuring them that yes, something would be done about Mike. One passenger wanted to press charges. Mike had scared them all so much that not one person on the left-hand side of the airplane ordered a drink. Now I was stuck dealing with the mess. After everything calmed down, I began hand-running drinks back and forth alone while the flight attendants working the other aisle calmly maintained the flow of service. Mike sat on his jump seat and read the paper.

Ten minutes after Mike’s outburst, the captain called and asked me to come up for a chat. Behind the comfortingly locked cockpit door, I told him exactly what had occurred. Choosing his words carefully, he asked whether or not I felt we should divert. I told him I didn’t feel authorized to make such a decision. Because I was afraid to make such a decision! Who was I to take responsibility for an airplane making an unscheduled landing? The pilot should make that call. We did not divert. I spent the rest of the flight in the cocklesspit.

When we did finally land, authorities met the flight. After all the passengers had deplaned, Crazy Eyes was escorted off by two cops. The crew scattered, all in a hurry to get home, and I slowly followed behind what I assumed would become an ex-coworker, a blue uniform sandwiched between black and white, as I walked alone to baggage claim to catch a courtesy van to my layover hotel.

We met up again later that night, as we would many nights to come, in a now recurring dream. I find myself wearing nothing but a navy blue feather boa, combat boots, and a baton on my hip while boarding a flight back to New York. My heart stops when I come face-to-face with Crazy-Eyes Mike. He grunts. I step out of his way to allow him to pass, and as he does, I notice his hands are locked in silver cuffs behind his back. Of course, I do what any normal naked flight attendant would do: I toss the feather boa over my shoulder and tell a smiling flight attendant I’ve never met before that she’ll be working the beverage cart on the left-hand side of the airplane. Immediately she stops smiling and rams me with her suitcase, causing me to double over in pain. Then, just as I’m about to yell out a word I never use, regardless of how appropriately it might describe the other flight attendants or passengers, the alarm clock wakes me up. It’s 5:00 a.m. and I’m working a flight to Seattle or San Diego or Santa Barbara. Doesn’t matter where I’m going, really. All that matters is it’s time to do it again.

So where’s Crazy?

Or am I crazy?

You tell me.

Chapter 2 I NEVER WANTED TO BE A FLIGHT ATTENDANT

IN ORDER TO be a flight attendant in the 1950s, women were required to be attractive—“just below Hollywood standards.” No wonder many a hopeful starlet became a flight attendant as part of a backup plan.

Rumor has it Tom Berenger and Richard Gere once worked as flight attendants. I don’t believe it, either, but I have dreamt about it. Several times. Richard looked amazing wearing nothing but a navy blue pinstriped apron serving me chocolate chip cookies in bed. Dennis Miller, on the other hand, really did work as a flight attendant for Continental, or so I’ve been told. Still trying to figure out how true that is. But what a snarky flight attendant he must have been! Actress Kate Linder, who has been on The Young and the Restless for more than twenty years, is still a flight attendant for United Airlines. You’ll only find her behind a cart on the weekends. Kim Kardashian’s mother, Kris, was a flight attendant for American Airlines when she met Robert Kardashian, O. J. Simpson’s attorney. What’s funny about that is Kris’s second husband, Bruce Jenner, an Olympic gold medalist, was married first to a flight attendant who supported him while he trained for the decathlon. Bruce later went on to purchase a private plane, which he learned to pilot in order to make it on time to public appearances.

But flying is not for everyone. Ant, the comedian, was a flight attendant for American Airlines before he became a TV personality. Evangeline Lilly, who starred as a plane crash survivor on the television show Lost, hated her brief stint as a flight attendant, calling it the “worst job ever” thanks to short layovers and swollen feet.

Men who don’t have a problem with swollen flight attendant feet include Robert De Niro, George Best, David Caruso, Wayne Newton, Lou Rawls, Montel Williams, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and American Idol winner Ruben Studdard. They all married flight attendants. And let’s not forget the most recent person to join the flight attendant wife club, Kelsey Grammer, who ditched his wife Camille, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, to wed Kayte Walsh, a Virgin Airlines air hostess. Bill Maher, a self-proclaimed bachelor, dated fly girl Coco Johnsen for a couple of years until they wound up in court. And there are all the famous affairs … but I probably shouldn’t go there.

The prime minister of Iceland and the world’s first openly gay female leader, Johanna Sigurdardottir, once worked as a flight attendant for Loftleidir, a predecessor of Icelandair. Wife of rogue trader Nick Leeson (Barings Bank), Lisa Leeson, became a flight attendant for Virgin. Virgin’s very own Richard Branson was actually born to a flight attendant. Prince William’s wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was born Catherine Elizabeth Middleton to parents who both worked as airline crew before going into the party supply business.

While times (and requirements) have changed, the job is still a desirable one. Thousands of people apply each year. At my airline, the average age of a flight attendant is now forty years old. For the first time in history, being a flight attendant is considered a profession, not just a job. Fewer are quitting, turnover is not as high as it once was, and competition has gotten fierce. Ninety-six percent of people who apply to become flight attendants do not get a call-back. In December 2010, Delta Airlines received more than one hundred thousand applications after announcing they had openings for one thousand flight attendants. Only the most qualified applicants are hired. Even though a college degree is not a requirement, there are very few flight attendants who do not possess one. Lawyers and doctors have been known to apply. This should tell you a lot about me, and anyone else you encounter in navy polyester. Think about that the next time you’re on a plane.

Of course, the first time I tried to become a flight attendant I wasn’t part of the lucky 4 percent.

In college, I went to my first airline interview in order to get away from a roommate who had more than her fair share of issues. She’d bring guys back to our dorm room and leave them behind. Try studying Japanese culture when your roomie is throwing up all over your clothes, the ones you’d specifically and repeatedly forbidden her to wear! So when my mother, a woman who had always dreamed of becoming a flight attendant, mailed me a newspaper clipping with an ad circled four times in red for an open house with a major U.S. carrier, I decided to apply. Not so much because I wanted to become a flight attendant, but because the airline provided a free ticket to a city out of state where the interviews were being conducted. Broke and tired, with a laundry hamper full of vomit and a disheveled man locked in the bathroom using my Q-tips, I just wanted to get away. I also wanted to fly on an airplane, something I’d only done three times before in my life.

Two weeks after I received a letter from the airline telling me where to go and what to say to the ticket agent to get a seat on the flight (not all airlines cover the travel expense), I stepped off the aircraft, sashayed down the jet bridge in four-inch beige pumps, a little black bag rolling behind, and made my way to a nondescript door clear on the other side of the busy airport terminal. There I found a giant room filled with hundreds of happy, smiling women. I stopped in my tracks. The banquet room was lined with neat little rows of applicants, knees held tightly together, ankles crossed delicately off to the side, dressed head to toe in blue and black. My brand-new canary yellow suit and suntan hose screamed LOOK AT ME! And not in a good way. Right then and there I wanted