That outdated Mayan calendar threw everything out of whack for the Media Guy.

I mean who didn’t have December 21st circled on their
calendar?

Yes, I was afraid. Words no longer flowed freely from my
fingertips. Writing was at a standstill. The words simply dried up. I was so
afraid that I lost days. I lost the ability to tell the difference between day
and night, breakfast and dinner, my head and my arse. I was afraid that I was
too old and slow now to outrun the flawed Mayan calendar. But most of all, I
was afraid because I already survived one end of the world scared earlier in
2012. I shouldn’t have to deal with this twice in one year. Alas, when the
media gets a hold of a story and it moves the needle, they simple choke it to
death.

So imagine being on a plane in the twenty-first on a mostly
empty transcontinental flight staring deeply into an iPad with virtually no
words hashed out. No notes. No thoughts. Just a vacuous space where brilliance
is supposed to reside. My publisher awaited chapters and there was nothing in
the tank. I t should have been easy to pump out some freshly minted words. I
was the only passenger in business class. No distractions. Yet, no brain power
either. Then I met Daniela Lewis.

Who’s Daniela Lewis you ask? She’s the muse I met on my
flight, relieved to be headed home after days and days in the air. She was my flight
attendant; easy on the eyes and easier on the mind. She was a warm cup of
chicken soup for the soul who inspired me by her dedication to a career that
didn’t seem so easy after long conversation. She will forever be my Flight Girl
Daniela.

MEDIA GUY: After 16 years flying the friendly skies, you
must have seen some crazy things right?

FLIGHT GIRL DANIELA: The craziest thing about the airlines
is the competition for these jobs. We have something like a thousand openings a
couple of years back and I think 100,000 people applied. Some of the people
interviewed were engineers, lawyers and doctors. We only get paid $19,000 to
start, Crazy, but true.

MG: But once you’re in, you stay in, right?

FGD: You would think,
but that’s not the case. Newbies are on a strict six-month probation period.
Some girls have gotten fired for not zipping their uniform all the way up and
another got the boot for texting while doors are still open.

MG: I know I’m probably being naïve, but if you’re on the
plane, shouldn’t you be in “customer service mode.” [Note: I know you can’t see
it, but the quotation marks around customer service mode were sarcastic air
quote marks.]

FGD: I want everyone that you can possibly reach to know
that: If the doors of the plane are still open, we aren’t getting paid. You
know all that time at the gate when we are pouring drinks for business and
first class and squeezing your overweight carry-ons in the overhead bins? Well,
none of that time magically appears in our paychecks. We might as well be
passengers like you, because we are making less than you probably are at that
very moment. “Flight hours only is the motto at my airline.” So trust me when I
tell you that when you are giving us crap about delays and push back times, we
just as upset as you.

MG: So….the Mile High
Club. For it or against it?

FGD: You know, it’s not against the law to join the Mile
High Club. It is, however, against the law to disobey our in-flight orders. So
by all means, if you want some dirty sex in a crammed environment, by all means
get your jiggy on. That is, unless we ask you to stop and get back to your
seats, because you should get moving if you do. As far as adding members to the
club, I don’t care and even the dinosaurs [the old, prude flight attendants
from the “stewardess” days] don’t care if you can’t wait to get back to the
Airport Holiday Day Inn for a quickie. Who does care is the passenger who just
downed a whole can of Diet Coke and is dying to use the restroom. When they
complain, we have to be their voice.

MG: Speaking of Diet Coke, I hear that most flight attendants
hate serving the stuff. Is that just urban myth?

FGD: Ugh! We do hate it. I can serve up to twenty-five
different drinks and D.C. takes forever to pour. At 30,000 feet, the fizz
doesn’t settle down. I feel like I have to beg it to go away. Sometimes I just
give the can and a cup with ice and let the passenger feel special for getting
an entire can. Most times I can pour four drinks of something else before a
single pour of D.C. Plus, you shouldn’t drink that stuff any way; I hear it causes cancer.

MGD: Why do some flight attendant’s skirts a lot shorter
than others?

FGD: Very perceptive Mr. Media Guy! Seniority automatically
means a shorter shirt. Why? Because we alter the length of them until our
probation is lifts. Most of the younger, athletic model-type flight attendants
want to wear as little polyester as possible to as soon as we pass six months,
we hit up the dry cleaners to shorten the, and show off our legs.

MGD: I bet it gets frustrating to get hit on after you hem
your skirts.

FGD: It is a little bit, but it’s part of the job for
waitresses and flight attendants. Remember guys, no means no and you don’t need
to make us turn you down more than once. Keep this in mind though: many of the
senior flight attendants are cougars in sheep’s clothing. They don’t get hit on
as much and are very flattered by flirty advances. than senior flight
attendants. That’s the rule and not the exception. This is where the hookups
happen.

MGD: Anyone ever die on board a flight?

FGD: No. We’ve had several high maintenance passengers who
must have crystal balls because they keep saying they are going to have a
stroke or a heart attack if we don’t land soon. But they are fine once we touch
down. I was one a flight once before 9/11 where a guy tried to board a flight
with a dead relative in a wheelchair.. I’m not kidding here. In full Arnold
Schwarzenegger mode, he said she was dead tired. Halfway to Los Angeles, we had
to mke an unscheduled stop and get him her off the plane. Later I heard he
wanted to save the four grand it costs to transport the body. We do have a
corpse cupboard / compartment in the cabin, just in case we need to store an
“incapacitated” body.

—

So as Daniela rushed back to handle and air bag incident in
economy, I soaked in her delicious sarcasm, sipped on my Diet Coke and the
words flowed never before. I was cured from the Mayan-Calendar-End-of-the-Earth
Jinx. 


—


EDITOR’S NOTE: 
Part 2:
Read part two of Daniela and Michael here.


Part 3:
Read part three of Daniela and Michael here.