The good news is, I haven't had a lot of drama in my work life lately.
The bad news is... No drama makes my blog boring (or more accurately, non existent).

So I'm going to reminisce on an interesting situation from a layover months ago.
Some specifics may have been lost in the months since this actually happened, but thankfully I will fill them in with more exciting, more funny details. Isn't that what people do anyways?

It was actually a very pleasant trip I was on. I had a few "long" layovers (12 or more hours) in "good" cities (not Rapid City or Des Moines). This story takes place at the tail end of the trip.

Before the ass crack of dawn the day I was to eventually end up at home, my crew checked out of our hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Everybody in the airline industry (and every other industry besides drug and human trafficking) knows New Orleans should probably be renamed Dirtysketchtown, or something just as icky - so, we made sure none of our crew members were missing persons and proceeded to our taxi van to go to the airport.

It was early. Like not even bed time when I was in college early. Plus, I was in the East Coast time zone, so my poor, unrested body and mind were wondering why I was making them operate at 3am. They weren't up for shenanigans. Fortunately for my blog, nobody asked them.

The taxi van driver (who was surprisingly sober and recently bathed) loaded our luggage into the back and we were piling into the van. A young man approached the vicinity of the van in an innocent manner asking to use one of our phones. From 6 or so feet away, he told us that the night before, he and his friends were partying when he was robbed and got separated from his friends. He also mentioned that he was in the military. Instinct told me that was his way of telling us he had a gun and knew how to use it... But he seemed so friendly and genuine.

I was torn. I  knew the kind of city New Orleans was, so it was likely that if this gentleman had anything in his pockets at the beginning of the night, he probably didn't have it any longer. He spoke without slurring and his sentences were coherent. His body language was non-threatening. His clothes were obnoxious (Ed Hardy or Affliction or something tool-y) yet clean, and in good condition. He clearly wasn't my definition of a creep.
But I also wondered why he would approach a group of working people heading out of a hotel in the early morning while there were dozens of open businesses and a police station within 2 blocks.

I  yelled to the guy (in case he was legitimately needing help and was just poor at choosing people to help him), "Go into the hotel and ask to use the phone! They're nice!"
Then I told the flight attendant who was half in the vehicle, "GET IN! GET IN AND LOCK THE DOOR! RIGHT NOW!"
She got in, shut the door, and sat there looking out the window. Young man army lunged towards the door, and some supernatural reaction came over my sleepy self and I also lunged for the door - locking it just before he got to it. A small victory for me... and a big middle finger to people trying to open locked doors everywhere.

As our taxi driver was coming around the driver side of the vehicle, he yelled something at Mr. Hardy along the lines of "Leave my customers alone, scumbag." He got in and locked his door. My heart was pumping. Both because that was more excitement than I ever experience in the morning and because I was really sad for that kid. Whatever his situation was, it sucked.

I avoided looking at him as we pulled away. Two blocks down the road I was curious if he was still standing in front of the hotel or if he had moved on to other unsuspecting victims.

This next part is going to seem made up, but I promise, this is completely literal and true:
He had been meandering slowly in our direction until he got to the corner near the hotel. At that corner he stopped and looked up and he and I made eye contact. In my head I thought, oh how awkward.
He starts running. Sprinting like a wild werewolf man. (I wouldn't be surprised if camera men from the vampire movies were there recording this - he was crazy eyed. And fast.)
Why is he doing that, we are in a car! He must be loco. He was almost hit by a taxi taking a turn and didn't even flinch (the taxi slammed on his brakes and running man kept on cruising towards us). I said, "WOAH, he almost got hit!" And everyone in the van turned around to see him trucking towards us.

(He looked kind of like this):

It was at this time that I realized we were no longer moving. I looked forward and saw that we were at a stop light. I thought my heart was beating hard before! I turn back around just in time to see him stop pumping his arms and reach down to his waist. Good Lord, I thought - he has a gun!

"Maybe we should just go!" I suggested to the taxi driver. Apparently being massacred by a lunatic was better than getting a ticket for running a red light. We stayed.

As he was within half a block of our van, he grabbed a hold of the bottom of his shirt with both hands and RIPPED IT OFF! He didn't have a gun but he wanted to show off his guns. Whether he wanted to intimidate us, swoon us or was just getting really warm from all the running, I still don't know.

(I told you it was going to sound made up. But contact anyone who was there - we all saw it.)

He didn't miss a beat - still flying towards us. I was freaking out a little on the outside and a lot on the inside - this is the longest red light I have ever been at, I thought. He obviously really wanted to get to our van. What was he going to do once he got there? Jump on it? Wrap his shirt around his fist and punch through a window? (If it was a good action movie that's what would happen.)

He ran out into the road when he was about 3 car lengths behind us. We were all staring out the back window and saw the reflection - GREEN!

It was unanimous, "GO!"

He was left in our exhaust like the cheating asshole in bad chick flick: arms outstretched (as if asking, "why?"), tired from chasing the girl (or in this case 4 women and 3 men) and shirtless.
It would've been raining in the movie.
But this isn't a movie.
This is my life.

Is there a full moon?

It was a strange day. All around.

I went on call at 8am, and woke up super pumped at 9am because scheduling didn't call at 4am. So I hopped on the computer to check where I was at on the reserve list. I was #1 to go. Juuust then, scheduling started calling. So I looked at my schedule and saw that I had a trip. I checked it out - Fly to Miami in 2 1/2 hours, lay over for 24 hours, fly home. Google: Miami weather - 88 degrees. Done.

So I hustle a little to get to the airport and I make it - no problem (there's no way I'm going to miss a 24 hour layover in Miami). Got to the aircraft and all is good in the hood. Crew members are a tad odd, but what's new... We start boarding the special assistant passengers, and there was an elderly woman sitting in first class who had an "assistant" in the first row behind first class. They both spoke little English but were incredibly sweet, so, Welcome Aboard m'ladies! Then 3 more ... very ... special assistant passengers boarded. They were also sitting in the row behind first class. Which is fortunate, because they wanted to watch everything that I did for the 4 hours we were on the plane together. And from their nearly front-row seats, they could! I won't go into detail, but throughout the boarding process, the woman said to me, "Thanks for sharing," (Before I had spoken a single word to her... Maybe she was thanking me for sharing my airplane?), "Must be like a... a rough road. And a smooth road sometimes. A little rough, a little smooth?" ... About who knows what, and "What's another word for "Patience?" And she was not working on a crossword. She was simply sitting in her seat staring at me. You're asking another word for patience? This is simply ironic.

But still, my attitude was good and people were coming on the airplane pumped for Miami. As I'm welcoming some new faces on board I hear from the back of the airplane, "MYYY PHOOONE!!!" In the same tone I'd expect to hear, "FIRE!" As I look down the aisle, a female passenger is literally barreling towards me. Knocking my dear newcomers over in order to get to the front of the plane. Along with "MY PHONE," she is also loudly announcing, "It's up at the gate! Don't eat my cookies!" After she told me her situation, which was, surprisingly, that she forgot her phone up at the gate area but left her cookies at her seat, I told her to keep her boarding pass with her so she can go get her phone and to come back down to the plane once she got it.
And that I would not eat her cookies.
One passenger remarked, "Umm, I don't think we want to eat those cookies!" Thanks... We were all thinking it, but I'm glad you said it.
In a few short minutes she was back with phone in hand, and shortly thereafter, you guessed it, cookie in mouth.

Thankfully a few long minutes later the gate agent showed up with our departure paperwork and said we were just waiting for 3 more passengers, but besides that we were ready to go. Soon after, 3 gentleman that were tall enough to be NBA stars showed up and packed their duffel bags in the bins. As soon as I looked at the passenger name list, I realized that they were, indeed, NBA stars.

The flight was almost normal-ish. Everybody and their neighbor wanted Sprite or Cran-Apple Juice. I think I served 1 Diet Coke, which is the drink of choice for most botox-ed out women (apparently not the Miami ones), but whatever.

Almost half way through the flight, elderly woman with economy cabin assistant waved me down with a cream and pink polka-dot make-up bag. Since she was tiny and quiet, I crouched down and in to hear what she said. "This is for you," she whispered, and gently thrust the bag into my hand, "It's Estee Lauder." Was I really being tipped with Estee Lauder products? I thanked her, backed away slowly (so I could see the glimmer in her eye in case this was a joke) and opened the bag when I got to the galley. Yup - it was a bag full of Estee Lauder make up, lotions and potions! I've been thanked verbally, with a handshake, and with cash, but never with Estee Lauder. Maybe she saw premature crows feet, maybe she was hinting at my lack of attention to lipstick (tinted chap stick is good enough, no?), but I like to think she just appreciated my service so much she felt she just had to bless me with ...Estee Lauder. Best. Tip. Ever.

The rest of the flight goes on interrupted but not too note-worthy, and we arrived in Miami 30 minutes early (Thank You God). Slowly each oddball deplaned, and in between them, "normal" passengers came up to us and said, "This was just a really strange flight... Lots of weird people. But you did a great job! Thanks!"

Deplaning took about 4 times longer than average, but that was expected. After everyone got off, there were still lots of things in the overhead bins (which is not normal for a non-through flight). For instance, my coworker spotted a large roller bag. Turns out, someone got off the plane and left their entire vacation wardrobe behind (we're in Miami, who needs clothes, I suppose?). Also, I set eyes on a smaller, yet still incredibly visible black bag with yellow designs on it. A Nikon camera case. Oh and what's this inside - a large, nice camera, lenses and storage cards inside. Yes. A passenger decided to deplane without taking their thousands-something dollar camera and expensive accessories along. And last-but-not least, there was the stack of half a dozen hats that the ballers brought on board, stowed, and then walked away from. At that point I realized I should have made an announcement for everyone to at least try going to the bathroom before they got off the plane.

That was one of the most entertaining flights I've been on. One of the strangest, no doubt, but I'd sacrifice normalcy for a good story any day.

Super Stew Saves a 42-Year Old Little Boy Woman's Life

There was nothing about Saturday that would have led me to believe that anything out of the ordinary would have happened at work that afternoon. My assignment was to work from Minneapolis to Dallas to Detroit and back home again. Easy as pie, Average Joe trip. (And Texas people are nice, only want "Coke," and ask for it with funny accents, so I was rather stoked about the whole situation.)

Every bit of the flight was going smoothly for the first 90% of our beverage service in the main cabin (economy). I was facing the front of the cabin and was working backwards, my co-worker working on the other end of the cart. We only had about 8 rows left to serve when I heard a bang behind me. I figured either something fell off our counter in the back galley or a passenger was trying to do some ridiculous stretches (I hear, "I get blood clots when I sit too long," more than I ever thought I would) and ran into something. My co-worker and I made eye contact and shared an "Oh Brother, what now?" eye roll. Whatever it was, I figured it wasn't worth my energy to turn around and find out - I had a cart half-full of beverages and a handful of thirsty Texans left to get Coke to. 

Friends, I was wrong.

The banging did not cease. It increased. Getting louder and more frequent. Then I heard my co-worker say, "Um, I think someone is stuck in the bathroom...?" This is a not-all-that-uncommon issue, as parents evidently take care of their kids less and less in public places these days (I have been asked to bring children to the bathroom on flights before. But after explaining to them that I don't have kids for the sole reason that I don't want the responsibility of taking another human being to the bathroom, they decide to let the kid go to the bathroom by herself. Good call, mom). I finished serving my friendly Texan row and turned around to go assess the situation and set the probably sobbing child free. As soon as I turned around, I confirmed, indeed: There was someone stuck in the bathroom. And they clearly wanted out. Ten minutes ago. 

The door was bowing out and shaking as if it were convulsing. A guy in the last row hopped up and attempted to help the bathroom hostage. Mental note: If I need someone to make a situation worse than it already is, call on that guy. Now he and the bathroom hostage were both pushing and pulling on the door as if they were in a raging game of airplane tug-of-war. And war it was, trying to pry this guy off the bathroom door so I could do the unthinkable: Unlock It. 

You may be saying, "But you were on the outside, and usually the lock is on the inside!" If you said that, you are one smart being who is about to be brilliant... Like many other doors you may have encountered in life, airplane bathroom doors also have a way of unlocking from the outside. You just can't tell, because you aren't supposed to use that function. I am. For situations such as this. So eventually I got rodeo clown to simmer down and move out of my way. As I was going for the external unlocking mechanism, I heard one of the strangest noises I've ever heard. And it came from within the bathroom. I now know that it was human, but at the time I was not sure. It was sort of a cry of distress, but kind of just a loud howl. Then I wasn't so sure I wanted to unlock the door. But I knew it would eventually be opened, so I braced myself and proceeded. The moment that I unlocked the door, it flung open. And where I expected to see a young, distraught boy (based on the tone of the howl and the vigor of the door shaking. Usually little girls just sit in there and sob while boys try to break the door down.), stood a - brace yourself ... middle-aged woman. A seemingly calm, cool and collected full-grown female. She looked at me and simply strode out of the bathroom without a word. The entire rear half of the airplane was now staring at us with dropped jaws because of all the ruckus. Not only because of the ruckus, because I guarantee if a child would have burst out of that bathroom they all would have felt bad and looked away. But it was not a confused child who wasn't "using their words". It was a woman in her early-40s not using her words.

"Uh ... was ... the lock stuck... or something?" I managed to stutter after her as she began walking up the aisle back to her seat. "Oh. Yeah! I couldn't get it unlocked," she responded coolly. No kidding. I know she was acting so chill when she walked out of there, but I know she was freaked out because on the primal animal noises she was making. So the least she could have done was tossed a "thanks" to the person who freed her from the big bad locked airplane bathroom. It's just good manners. 

Anyways. You know when you and a good friend share a joke or both see something hilarious and you can't make eye contact or you will both burst out laughing? Well that's what the rest of the service was like. Except not with one good friend of mine - it was with every single other person on the plane. I took a deep breath and turned to a young man sitting in the next row I was to serve. But when he looked at me with his nearly-watering eyes from holding in laughter and asked for a Sprite, I lost it. I burst out laughing, which made no less than 10 other people burst out as well. It's like everyone was a little bomb (I'm not saying there were bombs on an airplane), and when one goes off it sets the others off and they keep making each other explode. And I even said to strangers what I always say to my friends when they make me laugh at inappropriate times: "Stop making me laugh." (I think every time I've said this to someone the only thing they were doing to "make me laugh" was looking at me. Sometimes that's all it takes.) To which an old man replied, "It's good to laugh!" So I smiled and nodded but in my head thought, "Not at people who aren't trying to be funny."

When we got all of our giggles out and finally finished the service, all of a sudden the bathroom lady appeared back in our galley. I was shocked, but glad to see she hadn't locked herself into another small space and was also not violently and loudly throwing her weight into any part of the plane. I asked her if she wanted a beverage. I figured she probably really exerted herself while beating the crap out of a door and imitating Tarzan, and it was true. She needed to refuel with a Diet Coke. As I was getting it for her, and pretending to work much harder than I was so she would think I was concentrating too hard to make small talk, she spoke of the incident... "That was just so crazy - that's never happened to me before!" I assumed she was talking about getting locked in an airplane bathroom, but I would not have been surprised if she was also referring to her ridiculous reaction of fear that morphed into rage. So I just handed her Diet Coke over, smiled and said, "I've never seen anything quite like that before either."

I love my job.

  For my future recollection, I need to document the past couple of days. Some day when I am retired and bored, I will need to look back and remember why it's awesome to be retired and not working.
This can also, however, be for you to read and be thankful that you have your job and not mine. And maybe you will remember this next time you almost say, "your job is so cool," and it will make you shut your mouth.

  (Forgive the "lingo" I am about to use. It is not that important, it's just a way for me to set up my story).
  Well, I went on call Saturday. I was good for 5 days, and I was number 14 out of 16 to get assigned a trip. Generally when you are sitting at the bottom of the list to get called, there is a reason - you have already flown a lot of hours. And you are tired, so that's why you get to be at the bottom of the list. So there I was, hanging near the bottom and I get a call for OPR ("On Premise Reserve" ... aka Instead if sitting on call at your nice warm home, drag your exhausted arse to the airport and sit on call here) at 9am the next morning. Being the math whiz kid that I am, within 20 minutes I had figured out that if I do not get called from the airport, I will be done with OPR at 3, and be home by 3:30. Just in time to get a workout in and then make some dinner... This won't be so bad - it will be like a normal person job shift (except that it's a Saturday, but who ever does anything on the weekends anyways)!!!

  So up I am in the am to catch the 8:09 light rail to the airport. Things are going swell. I do a bit of sitting, I go for a walk around all concourses of the airport, I eat my lunch I brought from home... And before I know it, it's 2:30! Apparently time flies even when you are not having fun! So I pack my things up and am on my way to the light rail stop. At 2:40p.m., my life changed. I hear a reggae: "I am leaving on a jet plane - don't know when I'll be back again..." which is my ring tone for scheduling. I answer, because I am still technically on call, and it is a scheduler with a trip assignment. My flight leaves at 3:30 for Atlanta. Be there or be square. Now in the airline world, this is enough to make any flight attendant instantly mobile facebook status update "fml"... which I considered doing. But instead I sucked it up, put my phone away and went to print my schedule off.
  The assigned trip was not all that ugly.. Go to Atlanta, catch a flight 30 minutes later to Pensacola to layover. Fly the next afternoon back to Atlanta and then 4 hours later to Minneapolis! I say okay no problem - a little florida sun never hurt anybody (I take that back... skin cancer is incredibly dangerous).
The flight to Atlanta was uneventful. Perfect. I get to Atlanta and I have to travel approximately 45 miles from E12 to A9 for my next flight. No biggie, my legs aren't broken. I eventually get to A9 and of course, all the passengers are chomping at the bit to get on the airplane so they are creating a 4-person deep barrier between me and the jet bridge. Good thing I had my pole vaulting pole with me cause I don't think I ever would have been able to break through them. But I make it down to our little DC9 successfully and my crew says to me is "Hi. Going to Pensacola? We're broken."
  Nice. Those are the best words to hear when you step onto an airplane. Trust me, I know - I've heard them all. But my crew was based in Memphis, so they had funny accents and good personalities, so it's all good. (In case you were wondering, the mechanical issue was this: There is a heat sensor on the tail fin of our aircraft. When the sensor reads that temperatures have dropped below freezing and there is a chance of moisture, it turns on a heating element - like a defroster - that will melt away any ice or snow that might accumulate on the tail/rudders. Well, ours was broken. No bueno. And we were waiting for a part to arrive so the mechanics could fix it.) Eventually the part we needed got to us. And didn't fit. So we were waiting for another part.
  After over 2 hours of sitting and waiting and not much else, scheduling started calling each of us.. We got rescheduled to take a different plane to a different city. Oh you'd like us to go to E34? Ok... Now I'm starting to get a little irritated. You're going to take my Florida layover away so I can sit at at airport hotel? If I had any say in it, I would have said something. But I didn't, so I didn't. 34 minutes later we arrived in Savannah, and the next afternoon I was separated from my crew so I could go to Atlanta to wait for 4 1/2 hours for my Minneapolis flight.
  Then I checked my schedule and it told me something interesting... Instead of the 8:30pm departure for Minneapolis, I would be flying a 747-400 (which we fly to Tokyo, it holds over 400 passengers) at 9:00pm. That's a little weird. Why would you need to fly a 747 to Minneapolis from Atlanta, when there are over 10 flights going there that day already? Well, soon I found out that flights were being canceled left and right, up and down. And our plane was rescuing all the overly tired, hungry, and pissed off people. You want to put them on a plane with me? Suuure, love that. The first 2 hours of my sit felt longer than my entire college experience. I was tired but didn't want to nap because I wanted to be able to sleep when I got home that night, so my option was basically to try to keep myself awake by re-reading the magazines I had gotten off previous flights and keep checking if anyone posted anything new on facebook every 4 minutes (nothing interesting).
  Around 6pm I went to the E concourse to eat a fine Qdoba dinner. Then my wonderful and loving mom called and informed me that my 9:00 flight was now delayed and showing a 10:30 departure. And a bunch of the other flights around it had canceled. So I really took my time eating my Qdoba salad, and then headed over to my gate to see what was happening. People were happening. Sleeping was happening. Glaring at me because I had an airline badge on was happening. But most importantly of all, a college student with acoustic guitar impersonating John Mayer was happening. And he was not shy with the volume of his uncomfortably breathy voice or strums. Besides his entire sound, the thing I was most disappointed about was the fact that he did not have his guitar case opened for passers-by to toss change into because I would have given anything in my suitcase to anyone in the airport to go fart into it. That's how talented that cool tool was.
  So eventually the rest of the crew flying with me to Minneapolis ends up hanging with me in the scowling airline employees section and we wait for the plane to get cleaned so we can get out of the airport, onto the plane and out of the scrutinous eye of the passenger. Finally, after 10pm, we are told by the gate agent in a cheerful voice, "It's ready!" ... So soon? Way to go!

  So we get on and finally someone says to us all... "Has anyone seen the pilots?" Oh yeah, those guys. Do we really need them? Well evidently we did. We started boarding our passengers (which took over an hour) and eventually our captain walked on. So now he could start his checking and calculating of equipment and numbers. At around 11:30, we were loaded and locked and pushing back from the gate and we cue the demo video. It has to be all down hill from here. Right?

  We are doing our final cabin walk through ("I know it's a surprise to you that you can't talk on your phone the entire flight, but please turn that off now"). I am walking forward and I see a woman leaning into the aisle waving her arms trying to catch the attention of the flight attendant about a dozen rows in front of her. Going against my better judgement of walking the other direction, I walk towards her. Expecting her to ask me for a blanket, I ask, "Did you need something?" "She is in a lot of pain," is what she spits out at me, pointing to the woman next to her. And yeah, from the looks of her, that statement was very true... What would you like me to do about it? The woman, wincing and grabbing her own body all over says to me, "I need to lay down. I am in sooo much pain." Although something in me was dying to respond with, "then you should have gone to the hospital, not the airport," I said, "I'm sorry... You can't lay down, we are about to take off.... Do you want some water?" I didn't know what else to say! I legitimately wanted to help, but I'm not a doctor! She let me know it was probably her gal bladder, so I told her to hold on. I went to get another flight attendant who I knew was an EMT and asked her to assess the lady while I called our lead flight attendant and let her know our night was about to get a lot sweeter. She had the pilots stop the aircraft as I paged for a doctor or nurse, and in a few minutes we had a handful of incredibly capable medical personnel on the scene.
  After some poking, prodding, question asking, pulse and blood pressure reading, administering of oxygen and then vomiting, we found out this woman had a son on our flight who had no idea his mother was having big time medical issues. So we page him by name (for privacy purposes I will call him Ron), and right away, someone dinged their flight attendant call button. My coworker finds and says to the man, "Ron please come this way. It's about your mom." The man replies loudly and proudly, "Oh, I'm not Ron. I want to know if we are leaving." Well, thank you for your concern, you big a-hole. You don't even deserve a response. But we did find her son soon after and he let us know about the serious chronic pain meds that his mom was taking.
  Within 15 minutes after the ordeal began, all professionals agreed: "We need to get her off this plane."
So we pulled our big fat plane back up to the gate so the paramedics could come on to retrieve Ms. Pain On An airplane. As we were waiting for our aircraft door to open, she turned to me and said, "You know, I'm really feeling a lot better. I can go to Minneapolis." I responded, "I'm glad, but no you can't." Sorry amiga, only 1 medical emergency per passenger per flight. She was apparently feeling so awesome that she picked up her own bag and walked off the plane to meet her medics. Ron followed suit. See I did feel really sorry for this woman and her son... But it has been one incredibly long day and now we had 2 open seats on our flight. Less beverages to serve. Score.

  12:20 a.m. was the magic moment of take-off. Although the just-over 2 hour flight seemed long enough to have flown us half way around the world, we eventually did land in Minneapolis. I was home.

  I thought the show was surely over when 3/4 of the plane had emptied... But just then, a man with a hairstyle uncannily like Rihanna's decides it is the most ideal time and place to start taking self-pics.
Because I did not ask to see them (my bad), I can only assume they look much like these:

Oddly enough, he was swearing that top. 

  I was able to get off the plane in time to catch the last light rail for the cities leaving at 2:19, and it got me home and in bed at 3. When I awoke at 11am I was so happy to be home. But not more than 3 hours later... "I am leaving on a jet plane - Don't know when I'll be back again..." 

  Seriously, another trip? Don't you know what I've been through?!?! Apparently not. Because I was being assigned a Seattle red-eye turn. That means getting to the airport at 8:30 PM, and getting home at 7 the next morning... Being on an airplane every minute in between. Could I be any luckier?

Allow me to beat you to it...

My job is sooo cool.

Trash Passing Etiquette -- Volume: Pants Bunching

So I know I am technically in the Airline industry, but sometimes I am pretty positive I'm in the Being In Confined Spaces With Strange People industry...
And what an eventful day in that industry it was.
Today I think I will skip right over the simply creepy people (I know you see the window seat next to you is open but you insist on squeezing your big arse into the middle seat anyway so you can better breathe on the uncomfortable beautiful young lady sitting next to you) and incredibly odd "stretching"/shaking/convulsing in the aisle (as I am so rudely trying to do fulfill my job responsibilities and be available to the other 150 passengers in need) right to the insanely awkward social faux pas that people commit that make me wish Larry David sat on my shoulder as I walked the aisles of the airplane. In case you don't know, I reference Larry David because his show Curb your Enthusiasm is so painfully awkward to watch that I literally can't sleep after watching it because my blood pressure is that of a person who eats only butter and bacon. The story I am about to tell should be on a season finale.
My day was going fairly routinely: Woke up (although much too early for my lifestyle) rather successfully to my alarm; made myself a veggie-fruity smoothie and got to the light rail 1 minute after the "get to the airport comfortably" train and 11 minutes before the "have to catch this one to not be late" train. So I got to work just in the nick of time - like I said, today was typical. Hopped on a plane and flew a bunch of eccentric west coasty people out to San Fransisco and then got a bundle of same yet different people to nearly fill the plane to go back to Minneapolis. We went about our flight attendant business as usual, and things were going well for me personally - 6 hours on a plane reeeally fly by when you have endless celebrity gossip magazines to page through. The pilots come on the PA and say " We are going to land in the Minnesota tundra soon... Flight attendants pick up all the crap, sit down and buckle up. It's windy so it will be a real rough landing." It's not like anyone listens anyways. They could say the B word (no, not bitch - I mean the one you can't say on a plane, dumdum) and passengers would still push their flight attendant call buttons saying "Oh I wasn't listening - did they say we are landing soon? Am I going to make my connection? What gate is the flight to Imatotalinbred going out of?"
So anyways, with this announcement things got a bit more entertaining for Super-Stew Lynnette.
I was walking through collecting trash, "You're trash. You're garbage..." when a businessman in a window seat got all flustered because he apparently had a complete origami-destroying celebration on the flight and now had all this rubbish to throw away. Instead of ignoring and walking on to teach him a lesson: "Don't sweat the small stuff, bro," I decided to wait around with my trash bag so he wouldn't leave heaps of crap for the plane groomers to pick up.
And boy am I glad I did.
The kind, helpful, innocent woman in the middle seat sensed his urgency to get all that he was holding out of his hands immediately, so she assisted in the trash-handling process (not unheard of on flights) to get it to my garbage bag. But, like I said, this man had quite a load of trash and poor middle man (or in this case woman) apparently could not handle it all at once.
Okay, dropping a piece of trash or two now and then - not a big deal, right? Happens to the best of you (I would never). But the stars were aligned today in such a way that....

Let me just ask you - have you ever experienced pants bunching? Here's a common case of it:

Of course you've had it. If you've worn pants, you've had pants bunching.
Except it more often happens with you sit down, perhaps this will be more familiar:

However, I think his hands down his trousers are actually keeping his pants from bunching properly. Anyways, the man on the aisle seat in this situation had some quality Dockers pants bunching that, because he was sitting upright with out his hands shoved in them, looked pretty much like this:

You see, the bunching of Aisleman's pants was diagonally directed towards ... well, you see the above photo.
Now. I don't want you to think I roam around looking at crotches all day. The truth is so far from it, amigo, just hold tight.
So Miss In-The-Middle has both her hands full of Lordknowswhat, and as she's swinging the mess around to my bag a few pieces flutter away from her grip. By a few pieces I mean two: A napkin which falls on her tray table, which she quickly recovers and drops in the bag after her hands are free, and a swizzle stick (you know, a miniature straw) which falls - you guessed it, precisely in the Aisleman's pants bunch alongside his own mini aisleman.
Can you feel my face heating up to 211 degrees through the Internet?
WHAT TO DO?!
Well I could tell you what I would do, but MiddleWoman certainly did not do what I would have done (which is pretend like it didn't happen and avoid eye contact with every human within a 50 mile radius the rest of the week). She went ahead and, without thinking, reached and grabbed
First her jaw dropped - almost as if she was watching some other woman reach into a stranger's crotch on an airplane. Next, she made a sound that sounded a little bit like "Oops" but sounded a lot more like "Holy s#!t what did I just do?" Then - and this is my favorite part - she threw the swizzle stick into the same pantsbunch from where she retrieved it and with a petrified child-in-trouble face stared at the man (from 9 inches away - don't forget we are on a plane) whom she just violated.
Needless to say, this little mishap drew his attention away from his Kindle.

And this is where things got dreadfully awkward. Because now he, middlewoman, windowman, myself and several neighboring passengers (it was quite the commotion) were staring at this man's pants bunching and the bright red straw wedged back into it. And for the same reason that I can't watch Curb anymore, I buried my blushing face into my shoulder (as I unsuccessfully tried not to laugh) and could hardly watch as manbunches re-fished the swizzle from his lap and dropped it in my garbage bag. Just as he was giving Missy Handful an uncomfortable but forgiving glance, I speed walked away too fast to hear any apologies (or business card exchanging - I assume both took place) and continued my duties as best I could.

I think we all (well maybe just that woman and I) learned an important lesson today:

Take a deep breath and really take in the situation when something a bit unfortunate happens. Because if you don't, something much worse will probably ensue.
And who knows how a stranger will react to you grabbing swizzles from their bunching.

- OR - I will take that advice to heart, and you keep doing absurd things that I can blog about.

Tire Angel Stranger

Before I dive into my story, I want to give a shout out to my FIVE followers!
You are my favorite, and I will call you my special cinco. I feel like a grandma joining facebook, but you make me feel good about venturing into this unknown worlds. So thank you.

Now back to what this post is really about...
About a week ago I left my driveway and headed for my mom's house in my 2005 Cobalt. I was going to relieve her of grandma duty by watching my niece and nephew until my sister got done with her doctor appointment (not important information, just thought you might be wondering). About 5 blocks from home I heard repetitious clunking coming from the forward right side of my car. I drove another couple blocks and after realizing it was unfortunately probably not a tire ice booger that would take care of itself, I pulled into Nye's parking lot to have a look. If you don't know what Nye's is, google it. If you do, you probably know this is going to be an interesting story simply based on the location of it.

I get out of my car, walk around to the passenger side - and sure enough, my tire is flatter than Debra Messing. A little shocked, I stand there a minute wondering if I should call my husband to rescue me, try driving it to the nearest gas station to fill the tire up, or head into Nye's for a Nordeaster (NOT something I would attempt to drive after drinking). 

Just then I hear my logic speaking to me: "Looks like you've been driving on the rim." And I think, self, you're right - probably not a good idea to try to make it to a gas station. So will I call Aaron or have the Nordeaster.... Then I realize, wait a minute, my logic voice isn't scruffy, low and a little hoarse. And it also doesn't usually come from a distance. I look up and walking towards me is a man. He was coming from the opposite end of the parking lot. He asks if I am going to try and drive it to the nearest gas station, and then lets me know that the nearest gas station does not have air at it - but I would have to drive much further for a station with air. How good to know! He asks if I have a spare in my trunk, because he does not have to be at work for another 2 hours and he would be happy to help change it. Wow. Guardian angel.

So this man is helping me get my spare tire, jack and other necessary tools out of my trunk and tells me, "Yeah I was just over at Our Lady of Lourdes..." Coming from church - yep he is clearly a guardian angel. "Oh! How nice," I respond with, feeling confident that I have done something very right in life if there is an angel helping me put my spare tire on. 

Then he continues with, "I went there to pray. I'm at a tough spot in life right now. The other day I came home from work and the ol' lady and the kids are home and there are dirty dishes in the sink. And that's just the kind of thing that really pisses me off, you know? I mean I come home from work and I want to spend some quality time with the ol' lady but I have to do dishes, so I get mad! 

So I'm standing there doing the dishes and my wife comes over and stabs me with a scissors."

.....

Not a guardian angel. 

I don't think I said anything for the next 10 minutes as my good samaritan tire angel tells me that after he called the cops he and his wife were arrested, and his wife now has a felony and will not let him back into their house. 

Now if this was someone I had met more than six minutes earlier I may have had a word or two of wisdom to mutter, but it wasn't - and I didn't. I didn't even know his name for Pete's sake. I didn't know if it was a joke and i was supposed to laugh or if this man was really, seriously unloading this onto me. Eventually I peeped, "Wow... I am so sorry." He went on to ask about my marriage - How long have we been married? Do we have kids? Do we fight a lot? To which my response was, "Well, we do fight, but not too bad, you know..." I hoped he didn't mentally fill in the rest with what I was thinking: "we don't stab each other or anything."

I was praying 2 things throughout our interaction. That words of comfort and wisdom would come to me to share with him. And that I would not forget any of the things he was saying, because I could hardly believe them at the time myself and how would anybody else believe this story if I didn't recite it perfectly.

After a short while, I realized that this man was lonely and hurting severely. He was just beginning (or perhaps maybe even little further along than I realized) a very long road of life-changing pain, confusion and hard decisions - but then hopefully of healing and reconciliation. Thankfully soon Aaron called and although I did not say, "get here now I'm scared and you need to help me and this man" with my words, I ESPed it the 7 blocks to where he was and he showed up within minutes. 

Soon my spare was on and we were all awkwardly smiling at each other and shaking hands and we thanked and wished the helpful angel stranger well.

I was soon back on the road to mom's, and what a way to get in a babysitting mood that was. Soon after I left, it hit me how interesting life is. How often do I go through my days and weeks and months even - and don't realize the conditions of people around me? I thought tire angel stranger man was put specifically there at that time and place to help me and my flat tire situation. If he hadn't opened up and told me lots of personal information all of a sudden, I probably would not have asked where he was coming from or where he was going or what was going on in his life. Honestly, we were strangers and I didn't want to come across as nosey.
But I care. I care that people are lonely, and that they are sick, and that they hurt. We are all those things at least some of the time. But if I don't invest in them, how will they know?

I don't know how to even end this post. I guess with a challenge for myself, and for you if you want to be challenged... To leave behind your social fears when it comes to people. I'm not saying to go over to a group of gang bangers in a dark alley and ask who needs a hug. That would just be poor judgement.
But be open to people and their well (and not-so-well) being. If we aren't here for each other, what are we here for? To work for money? So we can buy more things for ourselves? Some seem to think so, but something tells me not.
Something tells me I am here for people who need my arms to hug them and for me to tell them life isn't fair but it will be okay, and I'm here for my family and for strangers and for tire angel stranger man and for you. 

Dear Bliary...

How to dive into something that seems a bit narcissistic... I guess I'll do it the way everyone else does: 

  Hello. My name is Lynnette and I am a blogger.

(I imagine my readers - both mom and bff - responding in unison with "Hi, Lynnette.")

A few weeks ago I said to my Supafine husband, "Hey, I need to get a journal so I can start writing about the books I read and the movies I see and the things I do so I can remember them and then recommend them to my peops." And because my husband knows that my memory is that of a daffodil (A large, yellow orb? Lemme see!), he did not question my motive. But he did suggest that I be less Louisa May Alcott about it and use the Internet via a computer keyboard instead of a tablet via hand cramp.


So that is as simple as this journey from idea to reality has been, fren. This blog is not 100% dedicated to readers. But it is also not 100% dedicated to me (unlike you). I will attempt to capture the things in my life that are worthy of taking note: good stories, books, movies, shows, locations, people, etc. and relay them in a way so that I will be able to come back to and say "Oh yeah! That concert was number one!" Or "Glad I have this blog so I remember never to do that again." It's also so you can read it and go, "That book sounds dope. I'm going to check it out from my local library." 


Are all new bloggers as afraid of being judged as self-obsessed computer nerds as I am? Or maybe just the ones who have created a public website wholly dedicated to things that happen to them in their own lives. Either way, here I be, doing exactly that - sitting at my dining room peninsula with a glass of organic red wine (shout out, Orleans Hill Winery!!!) in hand - blogging. 

All right then - I've officially blogged! I feel good about that, but I'm going to go now because it's long past my bed time. But I would never leave you without a proper sign off. Just remember that.

Here's something I've come to understand: Sometimes it brings us peace to hear words of wisdom; to know that someone in the world is really thinking. But lots of other times it's a relief to hear something goofy - that makes us glad that people are just people, trying to build relationships by building each other up and making each other smile. Hopefully my blogging will have bits of all those things, as well as reminding me what I don't want to forget.

A silly little something by a great brain that relates to our horrific climate:

Weird-Bird

By Shel Silverstein

Birds are flyin' south for winter.

Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north

Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',

Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth

He says, "It's not that I like ice

Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.

It's just sometimes it's kind of nice

To be the only bird in town."

Thanks for reading my first blog. I'm glad we've shared this time together.
 L-

P.S. this is a photo from back when I was 70 years old. Enjoy.