Adventures in Flight: Open with Caution

I was attacked on board my flight from Houston! We were on approach to SFO and I was performing my safety checks. I got to row 10 and there on the floor in front of the two occupants of that row was a large guitar case. As you may know, items must fit under the seat in front of you. This guitar case took up the length of all 3 seats!

I was aghast! "Where did that come from?" I asked. "Was it there for take off?" They nodded yes. My flying partner must have missed it in the darkness. Or, sometimes passengers try to hide things with blankets or coats; they can be quite crafty.

Of course, I now had to find space for a guitar case, and this was a plane without a closet. Thank the gods the loads were light. I started opening overhead bins, praying there was one with room enough for this musical annoyance. Each bin I opened was full of bags, back backs, paper sacks, purses, a CPAP machine. Open...close...open...close...full, full, full! Then I got to the overhead bin at row 20DEF.

I was running out of time, so the search had sped up. I opened the bin and before I could react, I was attacked! It came at me with great speed. It was close, but missed me and clunked to the floor with a loud thud, most likely heard by the homes we overflew several hundred feet below the aircraft. It got everyone's attention in the plane.

It was a horn! It was a horn that was about 3 feet in length. It was pointy on one end and blunt on the other, so either end would have been painful. With the light loads, no one was seated in the aisle seat underneath it. The dark horn spiraled like the stars would encircle one's head who might be unfortunate enough to have been clonked by it.

Yeah, one of these! *

What kind of horn was this? Who carries a long, pointy, spiral horn? What the hell does one do with an animal horn? What animal is out there cursing the fact that someone took it (and most likely their life to boot!).

It belonged to the man in 20F, who seemed a bit miffed that his precious horn had fallen six feet. Um, you put the horn of death along the edge of the overhead bin, in front of luggage instead of behind it, and you're going to get mad at me for not knowing this? I don't think so. You can take that bad attitude and shove it in a piece of fruit cake! I was nearly maimed! And what are you...a witch doctor? Why is there an ever-loving spiraled horn in the overhead bin flying through the air at me? Why? Where am I, Africa?

I'm asked, “What's the weirdest thing you've seen in an overhead bin?” Until now I may have answered, a cooler of human organs (which gets the plane a priority taxi for takeoff and landing!), funky hats, musical instruments, decorative canes, fancy suit cases, or once, I did find a flight attendant in the overhead bin, but that was staged. Now I can answer with pride, “A death horn!”

I secured the spiraled horn of death back in the overhead much better than it had been to begin with and eventually found an empty bin for the large guitar. The man placed it in and I started to make my way to my jump seat at the rear of the plane, catching the eye of a deadheading flight attendant. She smiled knowingly at me, fully aware of what must be going on in my head at that time. Guitar cases and attack horns. Just another day at Mother Airline.

I'm sure this plane has seen horns on board!

*Photo not property of Penguin Scott

Adventures in Flight: Say What?

Often, I hear from people who, after finding out what I do for a living, express an interest in becoming a flight attendant. I frequently hear someone say, “But I don't speak any other languages.” Well, I only speak English and Texan (which only means I tell a good tall tale), but speaking a foreign language is not a necessity for becoming a flight attendant. It helps, but is not required.

Languages fascinate me. I wish I'd learned another language when I was young, for now that I'm old, my brain is too feeble and lazy to pick anything up. I'm quite frustrated when flying to a foreign locale and ask how to say this or that and the language flight attendant tells me, and then half an hour later it is completely gone from my memory, even though I'd said the word 1000 times (did I mention I speak Texan?).

Every now and then I hear a language flight attendant speaking to a passenger and I pick up on a word that sounds so interesting. I'll ask, what was that word you said mean? “Solamente.” “Nosotros.” Such interesting sounding words, that in the whole sentence of what to me is gibberish stands out so well. Then I find these are such basic words, and mean “only”, and “us”.

I took 2 years of Spanish in middle school. That was a very long time ago and I recall so very little...plus the fact that I use that language so infrequently. I can pronounce words like a pro, and have several Spanish speaking friends who tell me they are quite impressed with my pronunciations. I just have no idea what I'm saying.

Maybe languages translated on the 

seatback monitors?

It can be rough working an international flight in coach and coming across passengers who do not speak English. On one such flight to Lima, Peru, I encountered a charming woman of small stature and a wide smile. I asked what she would like to drink, and from her mouth flowed all these words in rapid fire succession and not a single one could I understand. I apologized, as I leaned in, and asked if she could speak any English. The following words unintelligible to me provided the answer...no! And so many words flowed from her that fell on deaf ears. I looked for the nearest language speaker; far from me was he.

Fortunately for me, the woman next to her could translate. She wanted coffee and I did know enough to tell her, “Cafe un momento, por favor. Cafe con...dinner. Not now. Un momento.” The woman next to her filled in the blanks further and she understood; coffee would be served with the dinner, but not right now.

Later, when I reached her seat with the dinner, I asked if she would like pollo, or pasta. As if I had by magic maybe learned Spanish since we last spoke 20 minutes ago, she again went into a very long diatribe of words that had no meaning to me. I reminded her that I did not speak Spanish.

And this would happen every time I interacted with her. One thing I remember well from taking Spanish in school was “lo siento”, or, I am sorry. No habla Espanol.

She would roll her eyes, as if to say, “Oh, yeah, I forgot.” At least she smiled nicely at me. It must be difficult to travel in a world where you don't understand the language. Wait...I do that all the time. It is rough, but I've never been put out too much by not speaking the language, and today, with smart phone apps, it's getting easier.

There are two things I always say I wish my parents had done differently when I was very young and could easily learn things: I wish I'd taken piano lessons, and I wish I'd learned another language. It's so much more difficult to do those things when older. I'm just waiting for the day when Google creates a blue tooth contraption that one can wear that will translate languages in real time! (And, hey, Google, maybe you can call it the 'Penguin Translator'!)

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