Greetings loved ones, let’s take a journey!
^That’s what I wish the flight attendant had said when we took off from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and headed for glorious LaGuardia last Sunday. Instead, she said the normal things flight attendants say “fasten your seatbelts,” “put your tray tables up,” “seat backs in the upright and locked position” (absolutely kidding about that last one. I flew Spirit Airlines, those seats don’t move).
Since she was clearly not whimsical and ALL about business, I expected a pretty standard passenger to flight attendant relationship: I would fall asleep as quickly as I could and she would let me know when I was doing something wrong. I’m fine with that relationship; I prefer it even. You’re trying to do your job and I’m trying to go to sleep and maybe get a bag of chips (again, not that that was an option on Spirit Airlines, where their motto is “we’ll get you there, ok???”). We don’t need to be chummy. We just need, frankly, to get there (am I a Spirit stan now???)
The first hour and a half of this two and a half hour long journey was exactly as I expected. I let the sultry sounds of Ira Glass lull me to sleep as he said something that was probably like “Act 2: Who’s Your Daddy? It was a hot August day when Geraldine was murdered.” I was squeezed into a tiny ball since there was no legroom under my seat, but I made it work and I wasn’t unhappy.
Then, everything changed.
My flight attendant, my back-to-business, straight-and-narrow, serious flight attendant now decided that… it was time to play trivia??? What the fuck. 1. I and 70% of the other passengers on this plane were sleeping and 2. who are you????? This is not the woman you claimed to be when you checked all of our seatbelts before takeoff. I trusted you!!! We had a mutual understanding that we would both leave each other alone and you broke that promise! How can I ever love again!!!!
So, apparently, it was time to play trivia. Flight Attendant (henceforth known as FA) said that she was going to “give out some free stuff” if we “answered her questions correctly” and that this was “always her favorite part of the ride.” ??????? You’ve done this BEFORE?!?! And no one’s stopped you??? WHAT WORLD DO YOU LIVE IN!?
She started asking questions and at first I tried to ignore her by going back to Ira Glass’s tale about a pig who saved a donkey who’s a metaphor for socialism or something, but FA was TOO. LOUD. Fine, I thought. I’ll use this time to go to the bathroom. Apparently, everyone else on this flight had the same thought because there was a LONG line to get to the one functional bathroom. Everyone looked similarly annoyed that this was happening. Yet none of us asked anyone to stop it?!? Had FA brainwashed US too???
It went on for what felt like hours but was probably only seven minutes. The trivia questions were not fun nor exciting (I think one was a joke about how a pilots favorite bagel is a “plane” bagel. Kill me now), and when it was over she gave a huge pitch for the Spirit Airlines credit card. And you know what? I was so moved by her personal touch that I got one myself!!! Absolutely just kidding, there is no way in heaven I would ever do that.
Anyway, she eventually walked down the aisle and asked everyone individually if they wanted this credit card. By that point there was maybe an hour left in the flight and I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep after all that commotion. I watched an episode of Better Call Saul and called it a day. While we were landing, one of my airpods flew out of my ear and landed under some guy’s backpack two rows ahead of me. Once we were taxiing and I thought the seatbelt sign was off, I snuck out to grab it and guess what, FA got on the intercom and said “ladies and gentlemen, the seatbelt sign is NOT off, everyone MUST remain in their seats until we’ve reached the gate.”
You think you know someone.
That’s it for this week. Something I learned today is that Milano packaging says there are “14 distinct cookies” in each package, but honestly… they seem pretty identical to me.
Thanks for reading! I love you.