bitch, please!
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ok, now i don't mean to vent...ok, who the hell am i kidding, of course i do...
so this last trip i went on was the longest two days of my life. why, you ask? i'll tell you why. short answer: i think i almost actually had to go to the hopital. oh yeah, how's that for a teaser?
the actual story isn't nearly so exciting. here's what happened. first of all, on monday night leah stayed over so that she wouldn't have to either sleep in the crew room and catch scabies from the couches or get a room at a skanky hotel for an exorbitant price. well, here in chicago it was i think about 100 degrees outside or something like that and neither one of us slept for more than 2 hours or so and since we had drunk a considerable amount of beer the day before we also both woke up DEHYDRATED. i use all caps for emphasis, not just because i pressed the wrong button. like literally my mouth was not creating saliva. so after the soda machine ate $1.25 of my money and we bought water bottles from the newsstand (which i cannot believe was open, but whatever) we headed for the airport for my showtime of 7:05 am (which means i had to leave my house at like 5:30 because i had to put on my uniform at the airport to avoid getting sweat all over it before i even got to work.)
so, whatever. the first few flights were somewhat uneventful. shitty, but nothing i'm not used to. finally we get to the last leg of the day, to des moines. a thirty minute flight. what could go wrong? oh i'll tell you what could go wrong, bitches.
the APU was out. for those of you not in the aviation industry (also known as the industry of death, mortuary science ain't got nothin on us!) this means that, among other things, there is absolutely no air conditioning on the aircraft as long as it's on the ground. the temperature outside was around 90 degrees. on board it rose to around 110. also keep in mind that there is absolutely no air circulation whatsoever, so not only is it 110 degrees but the air is so thick and stagnant it required an act of will to inhale.
another feature of having an inoperative APU is that the aircraft does not have the power to start itself. so therefore it needs a start from an air cart which basically just blows air through the engine until it can start itself (i think)...like push-starting a shitty volkswagen. to get the air cart usually takes a little while. so perhaps we were foolish in not assuming we would be sitting out there for about 40 minutes.
so picture, please, the interior of a regional jet. 50 seats, all but one filled. no air...or at least none that you can sense. you may as well be on the surface of the planet mercury. i was terrified. i just knew we were going to have a medical emergency. so what did i do? well, what do you think i did? i fucking got out the cups and water bottles and started hustling my little ass off to get everyone hydrated. i ran through the cabin with cups and filled them with reckless abandon. the next thing i knew i had emptied twelve water bottles. out of the fifteen i had in my drawer. yeah, this was going to be a fun flight.
so i started on the ice (which was already a watery mess). i just started scooping cups of water and ice and laid them out on a tray. then i ran through the cabin with those. at this point, passengers began questioning my welfare. many of them asked if i had remembered to drink water myself. i basically politely blew them off and told them that i would worry about that once i'd taken care of them. finally at this point the air cart showed up and i closed the door. i ran through the cabin one more time refilling cups with two of the three water bottles i had left before takeoff.
finally, takeoff. this is where things slowed down a bit. i finally got the opportunity to drain 4 8oz. cups of water in about....nine seconds. then i got to work serving people whatever other liquids i could scrounge up since i was almost out of water. pepsi, 7up, cranberry juice, whatever. of course, by this time i was also 100% out of ice, so it was warm. no biggie though, most of the people were really appreciative just to get something wet.
finally we arrived in des moines...2 hours behind schedual, but whatever. i popped the door for some sweet relief (the 87 degree heat outside felt like the breath of jack frost to my heat-wracked body) and waited while they pulled up the jetway. as it pulled up and the ground crew prepared for the people (not that you can ever really be prepared for people who've just spend about 2 hours total in pergatory) one of the passengers decided to take this time to inform me about the conditions of the cabin.
"it got really hot back there," he said, shaking his head with disdain.
REALLY?!? I HADN'T NOTICED! my insides screamed, but i choked back the floods of profanities that threatened to slip out and engulf the aircraft, possibly killing us all. instead i nearly choked on my sugary sweet reply, "trust me, i know, and i apologize..." i probably said some other ass-kissy customer-placation shit, but i don't remember. what i do remember was his answer:
"well you sure didn't do anything about it, did you?"
my mouth literally popped open in shocked amazement. what? had he just been on the same flight i'd been? had i actually fallen unconscious and dreamed the whole thing? or was he seriously implying that i had relaxed in a secret air-conditioned section, browzing through us weekly and sipping margaritas? i was completely deprived of my ability to speak, partially because i couldn't think of anything at all to say to him (those who know me know how rare this actually is) and partially because i was still so hot that deep breaths caused pains in my lungs that i knew weren't healthy. i stood there gaping and blinked a couple of times before simply turning my back on him and focusing on the people bringing up the jetway. behind me, somewhere at the edge of consciousness i heard a female voice reassuringly say, "you did absolutely everything you could have..." as though the woman felt somehow responsible for the guy's transgression.
at some point i started crying. i don't know when or really how. the next thing i knew i was looking through tear-clouded eyes and shaking with the effort of holding back sobs. i'm not sure if it happened before or after they actually pulled the jetway up to the aircraft.
now you may wonder why i was crying. i mean, it wasn't as though i actually believed i had done anything wrong--i had quite literally pushed myself to physical and mental limits tyring to keep these people healthy and safe. i actually was quite proud of the way i'd handled the situation...one man actually asked for my name and informed me that i was the best flight attendant he'd ever encountered and that he knew of no one who would have put herself through such stress to help people. so i knew that i was in the right. so why did what he say effect me so profoundly?
well, for one thing as i previously stated, i had seriously pushed myself to my physical and mental limits. physical, because i ran around like a madwoman in 110 degree heat and a dress made of a luxurious wool/poly blend. sweat poured off me like a houston rainstorm. my clothes were so soaked i may as well have jumped in a lake. during final descent i actually had to keep stepping on my toes and clenching and unclenching my fingers to keep feeling in them and my vision had narrowed so far that i had actually begun panicking, thinking that i was going to pass out. mental limit, because this whole time that i was pretty much killing myself, my only thoughts were of preparing myself for medical emergencies, panicking, trying to make sure the pilots had enough water and weren't going to go unconscious while flying us around, trying to remember to keep myself hydrated (of which i did an abominably poor job), panicking, and trying to psych myself for the reduced rest (!) i was going to have that night before showing at 6:15am. i literally had a nervous breakdown right there.
as soon as the last passenger left the plane, the FO (who is an absolutely awesome person, incidentally) asked me if i was ok. i tried to say yes, but i couldn't. i choked on the word. i stammered, "n-no," and dropped into a seat where i began crying hysterically. i don't mean normal girl crying. this wasn't even manic-depressive crying. this was six year old falling off her bike and shredding her knee to the bone, completely without inhibition sobbing. the kind where you can't breathe. the kind of crying that hurts, physically. all the while, i was completely humiliated, breaking down in front of people i barely knew (the pilots) and pretty much losing it in front of people i didn't know at all (the passengers); but i couldn't stop. once i started it was like everything i've internalized over the last few years, every harsh word everyone's ever said, every time i wanted to scream at someone for doing something stupid, every time i've been junior assigned, gosspied about, fired from bands, every little thing that i claimed didn't bother me just was coming out whether i liked it or not. i threw my hands over my face, ashamed, humiliated, but unable to stop this catharsis.
and afterward, i felt better. a little.
strangely enough though, there were good sides to the situation. much like a native american sweat-lodge, the heat has somewhat purified my body. i the sweat that i finally washed off that night had the most disgusting consistency and a sick color that i won't elaborate on because that's nasty. i've also been going to bathroom constantly, another sign that my body is moving toxins. i literally lost so much water-weight that when i got back to the hotel and looked at myself in the mirror there was an extremely noticeable difference in my body-shape.
i'm still dehydrated (i just drained two glasses of water and three glasses of iced tea with my dinner and when i got home i peed for the first time today) but i know that i can kick that pretty quickly. one of the only health things i've never had a problem with is drinking water. i freaking love water.
in other words, don't be worried about me if you read this. i'm alright. i just wanted to share with you the glamourous life of a flight attendant in her natural habitat.