The Career That Flew Away
I will never be a flight attendant. The realization smacked me right in my midlife while waiting to pick up a loved one at an airport recently. And oh how I had once wanted to be a flight attendant!
It was the second occupation to capture my young imagination, the first being a server at the Woolworth’s cafeteria where I dreamt that I would one day, among other titillating tasks, run the French fry basket and milk shake machine.
All that changed the first time I flew in a plane. I watched; mesmerized, as the flight attendant stood at the front of the cabin and used sure, sharp movements to point out the emergency exits and the washrooms. Reaching into an overhead compartment she brought out first a piece of seatbelt and then a face mask and revealed their inner workings to the passengers like a magician pulling a rabbit out of hat.
Her makeup and clothes were impeccable and when she finished speaking into the microphone in English, she repeated the entire spiel over again in French. Later she guided the food cart down the aisle with gentle authority, kicking down the brakes and kindly asking what the passengers would like to eat or drink. Even the way she flipped the napkin out along with a bag of peanuts and a plastic cup of ginger ale was flawless.
Here was a beautiful woman who could speak two languages, serve people food and then turn around and toss the emergency door to the tarmac and guide people down the wing to safety. If need be, she could even land the plane. And she could do it all with her hair in place and without as much as a chip in her manicured nails. She was both helpful and heroic.
For months afterwards I practiced being a flight attendant – or a stewardess as they were called back then. I would line up all my teddy bears and stuffed toys in two rows of chairs and then take my place at the front where I would point out the exits and demonstrate the snapping pull down motion to activate the oxygen in the face masks. “If you’re travelling with young children first secure the mask on your own face before assisting others,” I told my furry audience.
I would repeat my speech in imaginary French before briskly walking up and down between the chairs to make sure all the stuffed animals had fastened their seatbelts properly for takeoff.
As the years went by I got over my dream of being in charge of the French fry basket and milkshake machine at Woolworth’s, but I never quite put away the one about being a flight attendant. Not even when friends and family expressed dismay that I didn’t dream of being the pilot instead.
It was a tragic day when I got on a plane and discovered that the flight attendant no longer spoke but instead relied on a tape recording. Not long after that even the hand motion part was taken over by a video machine on most of the flights.
I also had to face the fact that I was challenged to put on sunscreen without smearing it on my shirt, so to come off all perfect and polished day after day was probably not in my cards. I am far better suited for crawling about in the dirt weeding vegetables or herding sheep or working at my desk where few people ever have to see me.
And would I really have enjoyed it? Or would I have ended up smacking some poor businessperson across the head with a newspaper for pressing the flight attendant button one too many times? How much glamour can there really be in collecting someone’s puke bag? Or passing out peanuts and coffee? Even so, every time I hear a jet go by I pause in the farmyard to look up and watch the white streams trail through the sky and think that could have been me.
As serendipity would have it, just as I was finishing up this column I read about Steven Slater, a flight attendant who got so fed up with his job that shortly after landing he announced his decision to quit over the intercom, grabbed a beer from the beverage cart, deployed the emergency chute and slid his way to an early retirement. Somehow it made the demise of my own flight attendant career easier to take. Thank you, Steven.