Around the World in a Bad Mood! (11 page)

S
OME PEOPLE ARE JUST
naturally happy. They see the glass as being half full rather than half empty, even when there is nothing in the glass! They are cheerful and friendly and nothing rattles their cages. They have ready smiles, they're approachable, and I have no idea how they got that way. Perhaps they were born that way, but whatever the case . . . there they are and I loathe them.

Recently I was on a flight at 6:00
A.M
., traveling as a passenger to my annual training. Along with all the other passengers, I wanted one thing and one thing only—to sleep. The sun had not yet come up and the cabin lights had been dimmed. The plane had taken off and I was completely out when all of a sudden a bolt of sound coming through the public address system ripped me out of my tranquil slumber.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Captain Pete P. Peters, your pilot, and I want to personally welcome you aboard flight 555 to Paducah. We pushed out of Poughkeepsie promptly and are proceeding to our position. Here at WAFTI we're pretty proud of our ability to predict patterns and progressions of weather points. Our flight promises to be smooth, so sit back and relax.”

Finally, he was finished, but just as I began to doze again came this: “We're pleased to have some of the industry's most professional personnel and today I am pleased to present Paula, Peggy, and Penelope—your flight attendants! They're here primarily for your safety, but your comfort is another priority. These gals are not only personable, poised, punctual, and polite, but they are also pretty darn good-looking. Let them know if you need anything. I'll be back later to pass on some points of interest.”

Just my luck I get on the plane with the captain who really wants to be a radio announcer. Well, there isn't much more he can possibly say. I know my fellow passengers shared my sentiments because there was a collective groan when yet again the happy voice came bounding out of the speakers: “Pete P. Peters here again! Just want to give you a progress report. Today we will be passing over some popular and prominent parts of our nation: Pittsburgh, Petersville, and Peoria. You probably didn't know this but Peoria is a leading producer of petunias. I'll point that out when we get a little closer in case anyone wants to take a picture of Peoria's petunias.”

Noooooooooo! Why is this happening to me? All I want to do is sleep. I don't think I can tolerate it for the next three hours. Maybe it's mind control. It's one thing to be given information, but this is more than I want to know! We passengers want to sleep—what is Pete P. Peters trying to prove with all these PAs? Does he feel that since he has to be awake so does everybody else? Perhaps he is the sleep police and he has to be sure that nobody gets more than ten seconds of sleep. I am so exhausted, but suddenly there is a jolt and the plane seems out of control.

“Pete P. Peters here and we've got some pretty potent turbulence. I apologize that we can't always project this. That's one of my pet peeves about being a pilot! Don't panic folks because these planes can really pack a punch! It's our policy never to put our passengers in a precarious position. I would like to have Paula, Peggy, and Penelope sit down just to be safe and . . .”

The next thing we heard was a lot of rumbling over the PA system. There were two voices, but you could not make out what they were saying. Meanwhile the plane seemed to be careening out of control. The passengers were hanging on for dear life. Then, as suddenly as it came upon us, the turbulence was gone. The ride was smooth and the cabin quiet. Maybe now I could get some shut-eye. I closed my eyes. I relaxed my muscles. I took a deep breath, and then: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is First Officer John Smith. Don't be alarmed, but I've just killed Pete P. Peters.”

The cabin broke into applause and cheers. Some passengers were yelling, “Bravo!”

“His incessant chatting was keeping everyone awake, including me! So rest assured you won't be hearing any more pesky PAs from perky Pete P. Peters!”

I finally fell into a deep sleep. It seemed that the silence was a gift from God. I was just starting to dream when another voice came over the PA. This time it was nasal and high-pitched, with a Southern accent.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, this is Peggy. Penelope and Paula will begin the breakfast service now. You may have pancakes with peach preserves or a poppy-seed muffin. We also have peanuts and pretzels. If you'd like to join us for breakfast please lower your tray table. If it's not lowered we will not serve you because we don't want to disturb anyone who is possibly trying to sleep. Thank you.”

A
FTER MORE THAN
five years of living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Bitsy and I decided it was time for a change of scenery. We found an adorable apartment in Greenwich Village. We didn't have as many people passing through because we were now making a bit more money. Good thing, because having all those people in and out of the apartment was tiring, not to mention confusing. So, it was basically two chicks from the Midwest living in the Village. Whenever people discovered that Bitsy and I were single flight attendants living in New York City they always wanted to know about our love lives. Frankly, I didn't see the logic in their line of questioning. I guess some people are still under the impression that being a flight attendant is like it was in the 1960s—you know, “Coffee, tea, or me?” or “Marry me, fly free” (nowadays it's “Marry me, fly standby”). I suppose some people think I'm out there jet-setting around the world meeting rich, handsome, sophisticated men. They must think that I'm partaking in innumerable sexual escapades in exotic locations. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. No, if someone were to write a cable television show about my life it would not be called
Sex and the City
but
NO SEX and the City
(or anywhere else for that matter). Of course, I would be lying if I told you that I never, ever indulged in a little fling. But for the most part it seems that men these days are far too plugged in to their cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices to pay much attention to the gal picking up the garbage on an airplane (that's me). However, every now and again some poor slob's battery is run-down and he believes it's the job of “trash girl” to recharge it. How do I recognize this poor bastard? He usually makes a feeble attempt at a joke, like “How do I get to be a member of the Mile High Club, baby?” Of course, there's no such club any longer; it went the way of glamour, civility, and manners, but I, as a safety and service professional, must treat all my passengers with the dignity and respect they deserve, no matter how twisted they may be. For that I deserve a huge raise! I politely answer the question and try to get the hell away from the jerk as soon as possible.

Now it can also work the other way. There may be someone on the plane that you think you would like to meet. The operative word here is “think,” because if you do in fact meet him, in the end, he is never what he appears to be. This phenomenon often applies to meeting people on the ground as well. It seems, for me anyway, that the men I like never like me and I never like the men who like me. There have been a lot of books written on this very subject—I know, because Bitsy and I have read many of them:
Women Who Love Too Much; Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus; Women Men Love, Women Men Leave
.

Personally, I think someone should write a book and call it
Women Men Never Approach in the First Place
. I suppose you're thinking, “This girl has no faith in relationships.” Well, you're right. I had reached a point where I had given up dating. It's so god-awful, going out on a date, especially with someone you've met on a plane. One minute you're showing him how the oxygen mask works and then, bang, he's proposing marriage. And what's even worse is a blind date. There aren't many things you can count on in life, but there are a few . . . like death, taxes, and the fact that Rene Foss will never go out on a blind date ever again! You see, when you go out on a blind date it's because someone thinks you'd be a perfect match for this loser friend of hers. Most of the time I would prefer to stay home and do the laundry, but because your best pal or cousin or fellow employee thinks you “have to” meet her dear friend Mr. Jukes because “you'd be sooooo perfect together,” you reluctantly go on this date. They think they're doing you a big favor and that you should be grateful to them for it. I'm ashamed to admit that I got to a point where I would go on a blind date only if I was a little low on cash and needed a free meal. But I've even given that up now because I'd rather have Kraft Macaroni and Cheese six nights a week than suffer through one more painfully dull date with a stranger, both of us trying to generate conversation, trying to act like we're having a good time, and, worst of all, secretly hoping that this might work out, only to discover thirty minutes into the date that it will never work, not in a million years, and then having to spend the next two or three hours together. I would rather be alone and single for the rest of my days, thank you very much.

So I became a confirmed spinster, and proud of it! I even began a tradition with some of my “old maid” friends called the Spinster's Dinner. Every year during the Christmas holidays we get together at the Head Spinster's home and celebrate. We all wear black, give one another used gifts in a Yankee Swap fashion, and have a delicious meal of seafood linguini, salad, wonderful homemade bread, and lots of wine! No men allowed and no married women either! It is a very exclusive, special club. In any case, Bitsy was beginning to worry about my preoccupation with spinsterhood: “Do you really believe you're never going to get married?” she asked me one day.

“Bitsy, I never even think about it.”

“Yes, but you're so young, and here you are living in a fabulous city with millions of men in it. Not to mention all of the traveling. You have to admit there are some men on our flights that aren't so bad. I think you're giving up too quickly.” She was pushing me.

“Look, Bits, I'm very happy. Why should I start going out and screw it all up?”

“I'm just saying that you should not rule out the possibility of ever going out on a date again. Maybe your standards are too high.”

“Are you saying that I should lower my standards?”

“Well, yes. In a way I have.”

“Yeah, I know. Your only standard is that he be male.”

This was sort of the truth. Bitsy, God love her, would go out with anyone who had the guts to ask. She believed it was a numbers game: The more you go out the more you increase your chances of meeting Mr. Right. However, there was one huge flaw in her plan: You had to go out with a lot of freaks, and as a flight attendant living in New York you have the opportunity to meet all kinds. Here are some of the men we dated between the two of us, many of whom we met on flights: convicts, illegal aliens, men who wanted to be women, doctors, lawyers, unemployed actors, men born with silver spoons in their mouths, men with silver spoons in their noses, washed-up rock stars from the late 1970s, airline pilots, flight attendants, musicians, young men, old men, poor men, rich men, rich old men with bad coughs, men we loved who left and men we did not love who would not leave, Italians, Greeks, Albanians, scene partners from acting class, men who wear leather driving gloves in the summer—and this was all before I reached the age of twenty-five. Many people want to know if I've ever had a serious, long-term relationship, and I often answer, “Oh yes, of course, and it was the greatest night of my life.”

During that same period of time I did start dating someone (I guess Bitsy's pep talk did have some influence on me). He was a gynecologist—not mine, but a gynecologist nonetheless. We met on a flight and it turns out that Dr. Love and I had some common interests. For one thing, we were both taking tap-dance classes in New York. We started talking about it and before you know it he was asking me to dinner and a show. I was a little sick of macaroni and cheese so I agreed to go with him. Actually, we had a great time and it was fun to be with him. And the fact that he was a doctor led me to believe he was stable and could possibly be “marriage material.”

At first it didn't bother me that he was a medical doctor who wanted to be an actor-dancer. I mean, I was a flight attendant who wanted to be an actress, but eventually it did seem a little odd and then it began to irritate me. One minute he was delivering babies and the next he was auditioning for
Gypsy
. I can't imagine my gynecologist back home practicing Broadway show tunes in between pap smears. I began to wonder if Dr. Love was marriage material after all. One day he called me and said that he only wanted to date until the end of the summer and then we should probably break up. Let's say in September. Now, I've gone out with plenty of men, but in all my born days I have never heard that one. I mean usually people don't schedule their breakups. I began to wonder if maybe he was already married to someone who was away for the summer and would be returning in the fall. Maybe I was just a summer fling. I wondered if it was some kind of sick joke, but then I stopped wondering and was really pissed. After a few more weeks I began to feel that if we were going to break up in September we might as well break up now, in July. That way there would be less to forget and I could get over the pain quicker. I mean, why drag it out if it's going to be over soon anyway? So one night while preparing my macaroni and cheese, I called Dr. Love and told him it was over. He couldn't understand why and tried to change my mind, but I stuck to my guns. I was a little sad for about two minutes, but then I bounced back and was ready to move on to the next chapter of my life. Three weeks later the doctor called again, “Hey darlin', how are you? I was wondering if you would like to get together this weekend for a drink?” he asked.

“Why?” I answered. In my mind this was a done deal and already over by the Fourth of July.

“Well, Rene, I'd like to see you. I miss you,” he said in a soft voice, trying to be sweet and sexy.

My response to him? “Pretend it's September.”

I didn't date another passenger for a long time after that fiasco. The only thing worse than dating a passenger is dating a pilot, but that's another chapter entirely.