A Blog…Shaken..not Stirred.

I have made  passing references about my past as an airline flight attendant, but did I ever fill you in on how I became one?

First I should inject that this was a career I had over thirty years ago and the Airline is no longer in service.  No….it is not in the Smithsonian………but parts of it are in the Museum of flight exhibit.  I happened upon this when I took my kids on a trip to Washington DC to view some history.  Little did I know I would stumble across a notable prop plane with my daughter at my side pointing out to her friends that it has the same Logo that is on her mom’s  Stewardess wings now collecting dust in a Jewelry box…

When most high school graduates were sending in their SAT scores to prospective colleges, my mind was set on traveling the wonders of the world, and I did not see my self scoring a place and having to SAT my seat in front of a desk thumbing through textbooks.  I knew what I didn’t want to do but not quite sure what I wanted to do.  I was the last of four children and I’m sure my parents were tapping their happy feet for me to venture out.  OUT of the house.

I came home one day and told my mother I decided I want to be a flight attendant.  My mother’s reply to that staement went a little like this: ” Why?….Any idiot can do that.”.  Well, being that my grades were in the toilet at the time, and Harvard and Yale were not Knock-knock-knockin’ on my door…..in fact no college was knocking….not even a light tap-tap was audible;  I decided to succumbed to my  mothers statement and went to all available ticket counters at our local airport to  fill out an  application that might send this Idiot abroad.

My first interview and rejection was from a large airline that UNITED their fleet all over the globe.  I returned home feeling distraught and feeling the FOOL and now realizing that I’m one less idiot that can’t make the cut.  My mother sat in the living room reading her morning paper and sipping a cup of java as I entered the house with my head lowered fighting back the tears and laughing on the wrong side of the mouth.  I crept in down the hallway and headed straight to my room to wallow in my defeat.  Without looking up from her Dear Abby column she slung the words toward me:

“So..how did it go?”

I gave her my results through a broken voice :

“They said  Thank you for coming……………NEXT!“

My mother folded the Times and placed it on her lap and looked at me. She could see the disappointment I endured and then uttered a few sentences that went like this:

“You know why they didn’t hire you?  You’re too pretty for that airline.  Your father and I fly that airline all the time and those girls are not easy on the eyes.”

Then she offered to call my father who knew the CEO of that airline to help me along with the process.  I rolled my teary eyes at her and her backhanded compliment and declined her offer.  This idiot doesn’t need a helping hand……

Out of the Ten or so applications I sent out to become a flight attendant three responded back with proposed interview dates.  The first was the afore mentioned above, the second was from an EASTERN company that I had never heard of because I was a local from the Pacific Northwest.  I had it set in my mind to handle this interview differently. I decided to let fate and nature take its course.

I borrowed a suit from a girlfriend that was one size too big, and clipped my long brown hair into a studious undocked tail of a pony.  My make up was subdued and my pantyhose the color of the Ivory coast with my feet locked into someone’s leftover Nun’s shoes.  I was the ugly Idiot determined to go abroad…..

I walked into the entrance of the building shuffling my shoes along the linoleum when something hit me in the pit of my stomach……….

It was yesterday’s enchilada.

I raced to the concierge for directions to the nearest restroom and made it to the porcelain thrown as chili peppers held an emergency evacuation of last nights dinner.  I sat there in all my glory emptying contents and thoughts of missing my interview based on some bad beans.   I fled from the scene of the chyme and raced upstairs to make my appointment.  I hurried to the designated office and flew through the doors only to be greeted by a room full of life like Barbie’s.  There they were aligned in a U- shaped formation around the room……….forty girls, beautiful, tall, perfectly postured, trimmed, sleek, impeccably dressed with Ultra- Brite smiles.

I crossed the room to take the final seat and sat there as my pony tail flogged the person next to me and my stomach growled Beethoven’s 9th……

An Airline rep entered the room and called out half the names to follow her and the second half remain in the room.  I was left in the room.  It was then I was ready to accept the fated realization that who in their right mind would hire this plain Idiot in an over sized hounds tooth printed attire shifting in their chair stressing to suppress  a symphony of Gas.  I should just relieve myself of this ill-fated agony ……Well that would be one way to clear the room of competition….

In those hours I managed a few trips to the ladies room, hoping I wouldn’t be marked “absent” for my upcoming interview.  I was the last person called, and as the interviewer approached me I detected a wince emanating from her face as she ushered in her last candidate into her office who looked more like a Cabbage Patch Kid left out in the back yard too long  than a prospective Airline Stewardess.

The Interview lasted over an hour and most the time it was filled with visual scrutiny and few ” ah yes….” and “Hmmm” as she scribbled addendum’s into her notebook.  She ended with the usual  “Thank you” and shook my hand.  I walked out of her office knowing there was no future in this company for me and said “Thank you” in return.  As I took three steps down the hall the interviewer called out to me and said:

” Say…would you mind changing your hair style?”

I spun around and looked her in the eyes and smiled my reply:

“If you can do something with this hair I would be grateful,  I have been trying for years and can’t do a thing with it”.

It was a week later I got a call for a second interview and this is how that went down:

I wore a nice suite that fit, I wore wedge heels, I  applied make up, and I didn’t eat any Mexican food the night before.  I made the interview on time and noticed only one other girl in the waiting room.

I was called into a small dimly lit room with a leggy blonde sitting at a desk that held a smoldering cigarette in a glass ashtray.  She stood up to greet me and we shook hands. She asked me to have a seat. I sat as she discussed the Airline’s back round and what is required of a  Flight Attendant who  works for this airline.  I listened intently and answered when asked.  She then told me there is certain protocol with this airline and there fore I needed to be put through some tasks:

One task was to see how you walked, carried yourself, stature, balance, and posture.  She asked me to rise and walk about five feet and turn around to face her.  I rose out of my chair and in doing so my nylon clad foot slipped out of my backless wedgies and I toppled to the floor.  I got up from the cold tile and I turned to look at her and said:

“Well, that went well”.

The Marlena Dietrich Interviewer didn’t even flinch, she lit another cigarette and  blew a puff of smoke in my direction and muttered:

“Continue”.

I walked  the allotted five feet steady as she goes, and spun around to return when she shot a command of :

“STOP. Stand right there.”

And I did. Frozen in step.   Then she ordered another request:

“Raise your skirt up so I can see your thighs”.

Okaaayyyyy……yeah…….uuuuhhh…..yikes…sheesh….now wait a minute sister……can I have a nurse in the room?

I stood across the room and questioned the thoughts going through my head.  I looked back at her  through another puff of smoke as her head glanced down at a sheet of paper filled with check marks.  I stood there with  my eyes closed as I grasped the bottom of my skirt and fanned the hem high above my waist resembling a card board cut out of a Can-Can girl………minus the kicks.  While poised center stage flashing my Moulin Rouge,I heard the interviewer cough a chuckle and state:

” You can put that skirt down.  This year our Flight Attendants are wearing Hot Pants and we need to see the size of the legs to see if it is a right fit for the uniform”.

Strike two….I’m batting a thousand..I’m sure I’ve nailed this job…..what…..starting with a fall , followed by flashing my panties with Thursday written all over them…..as if she needed reminding of what day is was…..

She walked me to the door and said: “Thank You”.

I reiterated the same and tried to leave with what dignity I had left, and as I took another step she called out to me:

“I forgot to mention where you will be based, you have a choice  of New York or San Juan”.

I told her San Juan is fine, being that I was from the Pacific Northwest and we use to boat around the San Juan Islands all the time and I would be close to my hometown of Seattle.

 She blew her final puff of smoke and went back into her office.

A week later I received a packet from this EASTERN company announcing my acceptance to the airline and  a welcome aboard the “Wings of Man”.  I was so excited I rallied around the family and told them my base is really close to home.

“It’s San Juan”, I scream with delight.

My sister read the fine print of my contract and stated it was a base in PUERTO RICO……

Idiot Abroad…..

spread the humor.

Advertisement

2011 in review..Look what I got…..a WordPress Report Card…….enjoy the re-runs..

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Raining Cats and Blogs (an earlier post)

I have been inspired to get down and dirty and to reveal certain aspects of my life. Someone has put the notion into my head that I need to tap into that inner self that collects all the history and tears down the cob webs that are shielding some true lies. I was going to write about my first time  visiting  a Porn shop in Atlanta in the seventies, but revealing the true actualities of that experience is very benign in comparison with what is vehemently exposed today.  My Coed  daughter shows more skin than the three minute video I watched from a coin -op arcade shielded by a draped stained curtain that housed every STD under the sun……

During the 70’s in Atlanta, Georgia, the South had certain rules and laws that governed their great City and protected  their poor Sainted pedestrians.  They have  (or had) a major street in Atlanta called Peachtree Street and this street had many branches that added middle names to the main thorough fare: like Peachtree Avenue, Peachtree circle, Peachtree way. That tree wound its roots throughout the metropolitan area until it landed in the pit of an intersection that was divided between church and Porn. During the roaring 70’s or should I say snoring 70’s from all the excess potheads that were left over from the Jane Fonda era;   Atlanta had an area that was baptized ” the Bible belt” on one side of the street while the other side harbored a strip mall of Satan.  This was a religious war of an unusual kind during those times in which the Holy Rollers were trying to defeat the wHO’S -wHO of the porn industry.  This King of Thieves was a god in his Kinky community and owned one of the largest Porn magazine’s of its time. He Hustled night and day to defend his empire against the seething zealots who wanted to tear down the walls of Jack shack across the road from the House of Lord.  The marketeer muscled in and kept his ample footing and coveted the holy land down the street which left a gaping gloryhole and no room for Jesus…..

Now my roommate and I had a night off from our airline employer and decided to have a night  out on the town which included too many Mai-Tai’s and a giggling stop at an all night, dimly lit, porn shop.  When we entered the place we were immediately met by flailing inflatable body parts with orafices that never closed. I was laughing so hard I had to steady myself from falling onto a sticky floor, and I grabbed  what I thought was a handle  next to the counter, which turned out to be a removable object that vibrated off the wall. I tossed it to my roommate like a hot potato and she disappeared into another room. I found her a few minutes later calling out to me from behind a crusty curtain laughing hysterically  and peering into what looked like a colossal view master.

So there we were, loaded on rum and curacao, and dropping change into a coin-slot to watch our first pornographic movie.  We spent close to three dollars in change to watch one minute of a young lady dressed in Hot Pants and a Daisy May tube Top doing laundry.  My roommate added another two dollars and at the very end of that segment the laundress was approached by two masked Mucha Lucha wrestlers carrying what looked like liquid Tide.  We were stuffed behind this curtain of shame and took turns to watch the elicit theater until I commented to my roommate on the amazing 3-D effect permeating from behind.  My roomie asked what I was referring to and I said that the “curtain has a moistness to it and smelled like a bad night with Sodom and Gomorrah”.  She removed her eyeballs from the lens master and broke into uproarious laughter when she  turned around and witnessed a man standing outside our curtain enjoying his own “live” peep show..starring  US.

The last thing I remember was sprinting out of the that place like a bat out of Hell and my roommate running through the door tango-ing with inflatable Barbie deflating around her neck and the store operator chasing us through the parking lot………all the way across the street where we ran to a safe house:

A Church. …………………………..We stuck Barbie in a Confessional and called it a night. It’s O.K. she was in the missionary position..

spread the humor

The Tail Wagging the Blog

Fasten your keyboards….. it’s going to be a bumpy blog.  I love flying…in an airplane. I love being 35 thousand feet up in the air and staring down at the back sides of cloud formations. I love the feel of the jet engines revving as the plane bolts down the runway for take off.  I love the ascent at a 45 degree angle where my belongings escape their captivity from under the seat in front of me. I await the clatter of the landing gear as the axle stretches to secure the bald Michelin’s into their hiding place. I love when the “OK” light goes off so I can plug my earphones into the armrest and settle in to their 90’s Muzak system. But my favorite airline attribute is having my  very own video screen located on the seat in front of me to view the latest Blue Ray release…..uninterrupted…….except by the captain…..every 15 minutes…to give us an aerial tour guide of the earth below.

I don’t want to hear how the Rockies are “lovely this time of year covered in snow and temperatures below zero,” spoken to me with a voice that keeps clearing his throat of last nights frivolity with the crew.  I want to land my eyes and ears on Brad Pitt in his  tight WWII uniform spewing mean words from his bleached teeth and not some Inglorious Basterd breaking in on a scratchy Boeing 757 microphone to update me on demographics of geographics. 

NOR do I want to be disturbed by the swishing and hustle of a flight attendant who doesn’t fit down the aisle holding a giant GLAD bag to retrieve garbage.( They really need a scheduled pick -up time).

Nor, do I want the constant undecided passenger in front of me whose seat houses my screen, to continually hold an argument with the recline button. You will not win.   And if one more two year old stands up in their seat and hurls their sippy cup over the head rest for me to pick up…well…I’ll start throwing my miniatures back at them.  Just see how they would like it if my Vodka splatters on their face and their adorable overalls…  By Gosh….. Just try to explain that one to the grandparents when you land……

Oh, long are the days when Airline flights were a luxury  and you could un-flex those tired legs and extend them past a 90 degree angle. Oh, those good times of not fighting over the arm rest and ending up in an elbow altercation over some space. Which is now an added fair to your ticket along with luggage fees.   “Please stow your arms at your sides and sit on your hands until the captain has turned off the No Elbow Room sign”.

I miss those days of taking a stroll about the cabin during your flight and possibly stopping by to chat with fellow travelers and sharing a Bloody Mary or two, but now the aisle only accommodates the passing of one thigh and it better not be attached to Fat Albert.  And, God forbid, you should need to get up and use the latrines during the food service. That happened to me once and I waited in the rear of the plane until the entire 280 passengers were served. Then,  after the food conga line had cleared, I noticed the flight attendant was wearing her yellow life jacket and holding up a stop sign to ensure that traffic flowed in the right direction.

Oh, and let’s touch base with the cuisine featuring a pretzel bag no larger than Barbies Evening in Paris Purse or the  over priced mystery meal sealed in a plain white box that was probably processed via irradiation on the catering truck.  And you wondered why the salami was so shiny………Once I found four grapes running loose under the cellophane wrapped cheese and crackers that had escaped from the vine and the flight attendant  confiscated my box from me claiming “I received a First Class Meal by mistake…..”.  How  did they know?     ohhhh They heard it through the grapevine…

Once upon a time , many many many years ago, there was a lovely East Coast Airline that had jumbo jets that served a three course meal in first class featuring  a roast that was carved right before your eyes and all the fine wine and champagne you could endure on a flight from Puerto Rico to New York City. A service that started with a fresh Caesar Salad and ended with a chocolate torte. The entire meal was displayed on real china plates with silver utensils that had serrated  knives to slice the succulent roast, and a glass filled with a fine Bordeaux that you held by the stem, and a pristine white cloth napkin draped across your belted lap to catch any crumbs that fell from a turbulent fork.

All of this fancy food rolled by on several carts ushered by Stewardess with manicured hands and were required to pass a weight standard. And if you were in coach you were served a fully heated meal on a tray with an offering of two Entree’s to choose from. There were passenger lounges in the front and aft of the plane equipped with couches and end tables with reading lamps adhered onto the top where passengers could sit and mingle and enjoy the bar cart. There were closets aboard to house your garment bags so your Brooks Brother’s was protected and assured a wrinkle free trip. There were toys for tots stowed in a cardboard trunk to keep the little ones busy.

The flight was all about fun and keeping the passengers happy and safe until a Big Bad Merger came along and ate the little airline and ripped apart the galley’s and lounges that occupied vital space needed to be utilized for more passenger seats in order to stretch and cram people in tighter that a pair of spandex pants covering Oprah’s ass. Leaving souls to never again recline comfortably or to be free to walk about the cabin without hazard lights flashing or Nazi Cabin Crews dictating who gets to keep their carry on luggage on board and who gets to fight the crowd in baggage claim.

THE END.

This is your Blogger speaking…. and thank you for flying charlywalker.wordpress.com

Like Blogs Breath

There is a God. He showed up in the form of my husband. I knew  there was a reason I married him after being single for 36 years. He fixed my Espresso machine.  I have always owned an espresso machine at one time or another in my life, it is as common to me as putting on a pair of shoes in the morning before you venture out for the day. Even if they are flip-flops.

 I’ve owned more cappuccino machines than I have dogs. I haven’t own a dog for the majority of my life, as a child growing up my family had dogs, but my brother took on most the responsibility with the family pet. I recall we had the large breed of dog, like a German Shepherd.  I didn’t spend a lot of time with this dog, because he had an affinity for my older brother. They were inseparable. I admired this Hatchi relationship and wondered why I could never tap into it and develop my own friendship with the dog.

 I was in elementary school at the time and much too busy with my new Evening in Paris Barbie. I was very wrapped up in my Barbie dream world as a kid, I spent more hours walking Barbie’s plastic poodle than my own dog. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for the commitment and work of caring for a pet . I liked my ideal make shift world of a Dream house that collapses and travels with you. When I set up Barbie’s world she was not bogged down with domestics, she would just fancy off to her inflexible chifforobe and don a glitter gown for her evening in the spotlight at Studio 54. Barbie’s Amana fridge was stocked with miniature green plastic soda bottles with home made labels displaying Dom Perignon scripted from a fine tip sharpie.  Barbie was always busy, she traveled and socialized with other Mattel friends, she did not have time to learn to cook, get married, or raise children. She did ,however ,always make time for her pink plastic poodle.

Eventually as I grew into an adult, Barbie and I did have one thing in common; we both made great reservations. I am not the best domestic nor the worst. I would rather be trekking in the Amazon then to have to make dinner for four at six p.m. I would rather be shooting a 22 at a rifle range at three in the afternoon than fight the grocery store lines for the two for one specials on Doritos for my kids lunches. I’d rather have the beds made, laundry complete, and the food cooked by someone other than me, and so would my family for that matter. Their clothes would be less wrinkled and the food would be tastier. My puppy even notices when my husband prepares his doggie dinner.  He transforms his daily Science kibbles into Gourmet  Giblets with Gravy.

Some people are blessed with a  green thumb for home-made behavior. My mind has always wandered like a piece of driftwood on the sea every time I spray a can of furniture polish over the coffee table. I start to Envision myself at a book signing at Barnes & Noble  and conversing with the public about my best seller and then the reality hits when I  get spritzed with the Endust in the face because the nozzle is reversed..again.

Domestic chores are a form of prison for me and the only escape is hiring a housekeeper. I would do that if my Dog liked strangers, but he doesn’t. He also hates vacuums. So a stranger toting a vacuum in my house is a lethal combination. I wonder what Barbie would do? Just fold up her dream house and retire to her Black patten leather carrying case wearing her  pink silk jammies with her plastic poodle by her side? Both laying there in a coma like trance until their next days play. I wonder when Barbie turned 50  if Matel had her estrogen levels checked.

Women in menopause need a life size Barbie case. A giant suitcase containing all their private possessions surrounding them as they  lie next to their dog, neither of them blinking,and to be carried off to unknown territories only to be emptied all over the living room carpet to set up residence.  Again.

spread the humor