Why Fantasizing is Often the Best Coping Mechanism.
How I lived through a hellacious job
Fourteen pairs of eyes bore into me as I stepped into an unsmiling first-class cabin. It was 1995 and I was working a flight from Austin, Texas to San Jose, California. I’d escaped the post-college corporate world and had been a flight attendant for two weeks.
I’d just spent 27 hours at the Super 8 Austin Airport. Before my trip, I was excited I’d be spending a day and a half in Austin, Texas, Live Music Capital of the World, revered as the city that “is like a whole other country”.
I’d pictured myself walking through the city’s streets, R&B, country, bluegrass, and jazz bumping from rooftop bars. I’d be surrounded by hip, friendly people; I’d enjoy beers with the new friends I’d make while dancing to soulful music and listening to spoken word. What a fabulous career I had, getting paid to take a bite out of the coolest places in the country.
But my airline had designated me to lay over at the Super 8 Bergstrom Airport which is nowhere near downtown Austin. Too exhausted for the disappointment to yet sink in, I passed out when I got to the room mid-day. When I woke, I started to realize there was no way I’d be hanging out at The Cactus Café drinking a Shiner Bock while listening to Lucinda Williams. Stomach growling, I looked out my dim motel room window and spotted a TGI Friday’s that appeared reachable by foot.
“Well, at least I can get some fresh air and exercise,” I thought to myself as I planned my excursion. I exited the hotel’s front door and saw that the place was surrounded by concrete interstates and no sidewalks.
I climbed over a guardrail separating the highway from a frontage road.
I sprinted across, coughing from the exhaust fumes from a car that honked at me and yelled, “Get out of the way, you stupid bitch!” Two near-death highway crossings later, I reached Friday’s. I ordered a sandwich to go and began my trek back.
I entered the Super 8 with my Styrofoam box containing a soggy sandwich. Having been alone for the past few hours and being called a slew of profanities while trying to dash across busy interstates was enough to make my throat tight and the misery I’d been evading start to take over.
But I was an expert at lying to myself. “This isn’t so bad. I have a glamorous job, and I’m based in a world-class city.” (I slept in the closet of a studio I shared with another flight attendant. The place was on a busy main thoroughfare in downtown San Francisco, where car horns, fetid smells, and human and ambulance screams assaulted my senses 24/7).
But back to the grim-faced first class cabin. I was to take dinner orders for 14 passengers. As the regular flight crew’s “extra” flight attendant, my job was to help them with whatever duties they needed.
Me: “Umm, what would you like for dinner?”
3A: “What do you have?”
Me: “I have maple-glazed chicken with rosemary seasoning and garlic potatoes or four-cheese ravioli with tomato-mushroom sauce.” (I was trained to make our bland, dried-out airline meals seem as appealing as possible).
3A: “Chicken.”
Me: “Ok, great!”
3B, 3E, 3F: “Chicken, Chicken, Chicken.”
Me: “Sounds good!”
4A, 4B, 4E, 4F: “Chicken, Chicken, Chicken, Chicken.”
Me: “Fine choice!”
I looked at my paper and realized I’d already run out of chicken and I still had six more passengers to ask. I ran up to the lead flight attendant, Tanya:
Me: “Is there any way there’s more chicken anywhere? We’ve already run out and I’m only halfway through the cabin.”
Tanya: “Whatttya think? That I can just pluck a chicken outta nowhere and give it to these assholes?”
Me: “Uh, no. Sorry.”
I walked back into the aisle and asked a middle-aged businessman in seat 5A if he’d be okay with pasta for dinner, because we’d run out of chicken. He narrowed his eyes, glared at me, and said, “I don’t like you.”
Me: “I apologize. I’m new. I messed up. You’re right. ”
5A: (his tone quickly escalating), “I paid for a CHOICE. Didn’t they teach you that in SCHOOL?”
Tanya peeked her head out of the galley but retreated when I tried to make eye contact with her.
5A: “What is WRONG with you? Are you stupid?”
Me: “I’m so sorry, sir. I understand your disappointment.”
The misery of the past 27 hours alone at the Super 8 Austin Airport, of making $18,000 per year while living in one of the most expensive cities in the nation, and 5A’s abuse, finally hit me.
Me: “Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom.”
I walked to the front of the cabin, locked myself in the lavatory, and sobbed, sucking the sour urine-scented air into my lungs.
Three minutes later, I came out with swollen eyes. Tanya told me she’d given the pilot’s chicken entree to 5A so he could have what he wanted. (Couldn’t this have been an option when I’d asked her earlier?)
He smiled smugly, licking his lips as his blue eyes bore into me.
I’d love to say I put a used tampon in his strawberry ice cream sundae. I’d like to say I “accidentally” spilled a pitcher of hot coffee in his lap.
But I didn’t. The flight finally ended. I drove back to my hovel, and tried to fall asleep to city’s cacophony.
I had run from the monotony of an 8 to 5 career to the allure of traveling for a living. But I had not broken free. If anything, I’d imprisoned myself even more.
The only peace I found as I lay in the closet trying to doze off, was fantasizing about how that guy would have reacted when he’d bitten into the used tampon.
