You’re a salad

I’m heading home this morning from my first post-OE trip. It had its moments.

One of the stories is of a nature that I really can’t publish it for fear of all sorts of undesirable consequences for myself and others. And it’s one of those kinds of things that people outside the cockpit probably wouldn’t want to read. It all came out okay, and it wasn’t so serious that it threatened life or property, but it’s best left to the verbal realm.

One amusing story, though, relates to a flight attendant who has weaved her way through my career here at World. I’ll call her Arlene for the sake of protecting the guilty.

The first time I met her was on a trip to Thailand. The rest of the Thailand story will have to wait for another time. I didn’t know anything about Arlene prior to that flight. While we were on the way there, I decided to wander around the airplane and see if I could stir up a little crew going-out excursion after arrival. The conversation went something like this:

Me: “Hey, you up for going out when we get in? Maybe dinner or a drink or something like that?”

Arlene: “Nah, I think I’m gonna pass.”

Me: “Oh? We’re going to Thailand, ya know. Could be a fun time.”

Arlene: “Well, I’m trying to cut back on drinking a little bit. I’ve been overdoing it lately.”

Me: “Oh… well we wouldn’t want you to overdo it. What do you mean by overdoing it anyway?”

Arlene: (without missing a beat) “Well, I’ve blacked out the last 30 nights in a row.”

Okayyyyyy, so now I know what overdoing it means. Her Betty Ford moment stuck for that night, but that night only. The next night we ran into her walking down the street, drink in hand, having a grand ole time.

Truth be known, she’s quite the interesting person, though. She’s rather exotic looking, some mix of black, asian, and who knows what else, but wears the signs of a rough life. She has a sort of unusual combination of natural beauty, human canvas, and content self-destruction. But there’s no questioning who she is. The next time we met was about a year later in Japan. She told me she had gotten engaged, married and divorced since the last time we saw each other. Several years later, we bumped into each other in Ireland. She was married again to another guy.

So I was looking forward to our trip together. I wondered what she would have been up to since the last time. I went through lobby of the hotel the night before our trip on my way out to dinner and saw her at the bar (of course) with another of our flight attendants. We had a nice time catching up. I asked if she was still married. She said all she got out of that one was her last name.

At some point, there was some conversation about how to describe her. The other flight attendant, in a moment of inspiration, blurted out “You’re a salad.” We were all impressed with the originality and, dare I say, perfection of that description…

V-