Daniela:::Deux

Two weeks ago I posted a few of the letters from my readers in my annual mail sack column and while I didn’t post any of the correspondence about Flight Girl Daniela, I did feel guilty looking back. After all, my interview with the flight attendant with a world of sass is by far the most widely read column in the nearly seven year run of The Media Guy Struggles.

There’s nothing like #TBT with Daniela.

I posted Part One as kind of a tongue-in-cheek throwaway column to sum up the Mayan Calendar freak out we all suffered through in December 2012. Then it took off, just like one of those giant Airbuses might, to the tune of 113,000 plus page views. Think about that – 113,000 hits for two people who met up in business class on an empty plane from New York to Los Angeles and ranted on about the behavior of passengers.

Now, eighteen months later we still keep in touch and even caught a modeling class together and I thought it was time to update the sorry state of of how people act on planes.

MEDIA GUY: What’s the new trend in asinine behavior on board your flights?

FLIGHT GIRL DANIELA: Bare feet on planes! Honestly people, STOP THE MADNESS. To the footwear challenged, I say to you: Don’t f*****g do this! My airplane is not your oddly-shaped bedroom. It’s a hermetically-sealed tube doubling as public transportation. “Public” meaning that you didn’t charter it! You’re not the
only person on this sucker. Who wants to be near your toe-jam and athlete’s foot and irritated corns. Hey, girls — that applies to you too.

“Honestly people: STOP THE MADNESS!”

MG: At least they don’t ask you to do pedicures (laughs).

FGD: Don’t laugh. You’d be really surprised by the idiots
that fly. They think it’s still the seventies where all of those sexists
stewardess advertisements ruled the landscape. Remember, in the 1970s when
National Airlines (*) launched their “Fly Me”
campaign?

You know the one where their aircraft were given female
names and the flight attendants starred in the advertising? Thank goodness I
wasn’t alive, be it seems that you didn’t just ride on the airplane…you got
to ride the stewardess as well. Michael, honestly, find the add and post it
with your column! But it doesn’t stop there. How about the new “Got
milk?” ads that claim that milk eases PMS symptoms—thus making your wife
or girlfriend slightly less of a crazy, irrational bitch every month? Who makes
these ads? Promise me me YOU don’t do stuff like that…. The anti-woman /
anti-girl has to stop some decade.

National Airlines, an, uh, class act. (More ads at the end of the column.)

MG: Why can’t they just recline their seat and keep their shoes on?

FGD: Ah, that guy! The Passenger Who Reclines Their Plane Seat. There are few mile-high issues as divisive as the battle over the reclining seat. Some feel it’s their right to sit back and relax on a long flight. After all, they’ve paid good money for the trip and let’s just admit it, most seats are lumpy and just plain wrong. Others find this act ‘plane’ inconsiderate saying the reclining seat should be eliminated. There are fist fights, crushed knees, broken laptops, spills and untold animosity. People are prisoners in their 17-inch across seat who passengers recline, the scent of Head and Shoulders wafting towards my nostrils that are mere inches from your head. My airline is really, really good at taking things away, so how about taking away with quasi Barcalounger?

MG: While we were being horrified by the anaconda, you mentioned something about fakers, but didn’t finish…

FGD: …Fakers are THE worst. Hey fakers! Don’t ask for a wheelchair when you’re perfectly ambulatory just so your lazy ass can board the plane first without walking those exhausting thirty feet. Here’s the thing, first on = last off. So when we land, you will need to wait until every f******g passenger has deplaned before you are able to do the same. And to the majority of you that are somehow healed (CAN I GET AN AMEN?! or a WooWoo) mid-flight? From now on I vow to come find you in the terminal and out you in front of your family as a “faker faker belly acher.”

MG: But what’s worst? The faker or the the insufferable rude foreign traveler?

FGD: How do you say “go f**k yourself” in French?

I hope the raging B that spoke at me on my last trip to a French-speaking country reads. It may not sound like much, but for me it was enough to make me want to pull her hair out by her horrific ombre roots. I was performing my final compliance when I come across this full-fledged smellbag with her tray table down, still using her laptop. I politely ask her to power it down and stow it.

Her response?: Nothing. Zip.

So, I ask her again. Her response?: Still typing.

I ask a third time while gently waving my hand in her path of vision so she can see me, again nothing.

On my fourth attempt, I slightly raised my voice and asked again. She doesn’t bother to stop typing or look up from the screen and says “I KNOW!!” (like I am inconveniencing her). Of course someone being an smellbag before takeoff is never a good sign.

Cut to the beverage service and when I ask her if they would like a beverage, I get the zero response treatment. After I finish my service, I move down the aisle so I can collect the trash and that’s where she sticks her arm into the aisle stopping me mid stride: “Ummmm, is there a reason you skipped us?” Really? First off, if you need to get my attention, kindly ask for it like a normal human being. Maybe an old fashioned “excuse me”. I do not take well to someone pulling at my blouse, trousers, apron, tapping my shoulder, flailing their arms in front of me, snapping their fingers, shaking their cup, etc. NOT. COOL. Keep your hands to yourself and be polite. I mean seriously, who raised you? Uhm, yeah, that’s why I skipped you.

I get one of these ladies on every flight…

MG: Surely, it’s not all that bad?

FGD: No, not at all. I just find it funny that people want to take it out on us for the baggage fees and delays and TSA pat-down incidents. Trust me, we are getting paid less than you are! I mean, if you where at McDonald’s would you go behind the counter and serve yourself? We get people who do that all of the time. Don’t touch the cart for goodness sakes! And, do not even think about helping yourself to whatever you want off of it. Just ask.

Oh, maybe I need a vacation from traveling. Let’s go find some more anacondas to draw!