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."