No Fly Zone

Ottawa has announced plans for new security upgrades, including barring some people from flying on commercial flights. Under the program, the government will identify people who pose "an immediate threat to aviation security" and will work with airlines to stop those people from flying, said Transport Minister Jean Lapierre.

In light of Canada's recently released No-Fly list, I have created my own No-Fly list. I've compiled a list of people that I myself have deemed unfit to fly.

Old People - I have nothing against old people in general. I'm not by any means suggesting that we reinstate the ancient practice of setting our elderly citizen adrift on icebergs. I am merely suggesting that should not be allowed to fly. Ever. While this sounds a tinsy bit drastic, let me explain. Old people whine, a lot. It's too cold, the tea is too hot, the plane is too loud. I didn't realize that I had been so spoiled with my own grandparents. My grandparents are the best people I know. As it turns out, most are not this way.

People with Communicable Diseases - People who leave behind a seat pocket full of snotty Kleenexes should not be allowed on a plane. (By the way, I include crazy in my list of communicable diseases, because in my experience crazy is just that; communicable and a disease).

Kids - I didn't add kids to this list just because I hold a deep grudge against them, I added them because they are messy. Even if kids aren't eating Cheerios, they tend to leave a mushy, soggy, Cheerios trail behind them wherever they go, like slugs. I grimace when I hand anyone under the age of 10 a cookie because I know that a few hours later I will be on all fours scraping ground-up cookie off the carpet.

Athletes - Sorry athletes, it isn't personal. You are much to huge to be in an aisle seat and make it difficult for me to walk through. May I suggest the Greyhound? Plenty-O-elbow room there my friends.

Business Men - I've already addressed my beef with business class in a previous post. However, I just wanted to be to clear that no one traveling for any type of business will be permitted to fly according to my list.

My plan is to limit air travel to well-behaved, middle aged, childless women who are unemployed. This will not only increase flight safety, it will also be conducive to the prolonged sanity of your local flight attendant.

More Airtoons

Alarming!

3:20 am

The fire alarm starts ringing.

After waking up in a complete state of confusion I identified that annoying ringing bell as the hotel fire alarm. This is was the fifth alarm that had woken me up in the middle of the night this year.

I laid back in bed and listened for the sounds of crackling wood, screaming, fire trucks, anything that would confirm that this was in fact an actual fire. I was not interested in getting out of bed at that ungoldy hour until I had proof that the hotel was engulfed in flames first. It was the same old drill every time the fire alarm went off. I get dressed, go downstairs and stand around in the lobby with my crew whom are all in various states of undress. (Trust me, a pilot dressed in his giant sweatpants and over sized wife-beater is not something one wants to see in the wee hours of the morning. No offense Ty, you are much cooler than they are). After an hour or so, the alarm goes off and we all hike back up the stairs to bed. No emergency there right?

After a few more minutes in bed it dawned on me that I had just weighted the risk of burning to death in a horrible hotel fire to the prospect of having to get dressed and out of bed...and couldn't decide which was worse.

Needless to say I got out of bed. Oh, and while it was in fact a false alarm it was also most definitely a wake up call.

A Change of Pace

While the negative aspects of my job never cease to amuse/frustrate/stun me, I figured it was about time for a post that highlights all the things I actually DO love about it. So here we go...

I love the smell of the plane in the morning (If you are curious what this smells like, imagine a cross between a hospital, Tim Hortons and a drop-in centre)

I love jumping into a giant, fluffy bed like this at the end of a hard day when my feet are sore and my back aches. (A little something I've learned about mattresses; Sleep Number = Bad. Pillow Top = Good)


I love going through customs. (To clarify, I don't love being verbally abused by Customs officers. However, I have associated the act of carrying my passport and declaring my food with travel and anything associated with travel is good)

I love visiting different cities and learning about what makes them unique, but undeniably Canadian.

I love talking people through their first flight and hearing their sigh of relief as we land safely.

I love working so closely with someone that by the end of four days we are able to anticipate what the other is going to do and move together as a well-oiled machine. (This is a galley survival technique so as to avoid constantly banging heads and smashing fingers in cupboards)

I love watching the sun rise and set from 40,000ft.

I love going out for a dinner with the crew after a hard day of flying.

I love eating seafood from both coasts in one weekend.

I love finding entries like this in the cabin logbook



I love living out of a suitcase. There is something about being entirely mobile and having everything I need in one tiny bag that is comforting.

Even though I complain about it, do honestly do love my job and if nothing else, it keeps me thoroughly entertained.

So You Want to be Flight Attendant?

This isn't mine, but it is pretty accurate.

Go to a resale store and find an old, navy suit that an army sergeant might have worn. Add a white shirt and a tie. Wear that same outfit for three consecutive days.

Go to an airport and watch airplanes take off for several hours. Pretend you are standing by for them and they are all full. Go home. Return to the airport the very next day and do the same thing again.

Fill several large boxes with rocks. Lift them over your head and place them on the top shelf of a closet. Slam the door shut until the boxes fit. Do this until you feel a disc slip in your back.

Turn on a radio. Be sure to set it between stations so there is plenty of static. Turn on the vacuum cleaner and garbage disposal. Run them all night.

Remove the covers from several T.V entrees. Place them in a hot oven. Leave the food in the oven until it's completely dried out. Remove the hot trays with your bare hands. Serve to your family. Don't include anything for yourself.

Serve your family a beverage one hour after they've received their meal. Make them remain in their seats during this time. Ask them to scream at you and complain about the service. Scrounge uneaten rolls off the plates for you to eat 6 hours later when you're really hungry.

Place a straight-backed chair in a closet facing a blank wall. Use a belt to strap yourself into it. Eat the rolls you saved from your family's meal.

Ask your family to use the bathroom as frequently as possible. Tell them to remove their shoes and socks before entering, and see who can make the most disgusting mess. Clean the bathroom every hour throughout the night.

Make a narrow aisle between several dining room chairs and randomly scatter your husband's runners and loafers along the way. Turn off the lights and spend the night walking up and down the aisle while banging your shins against the chair legs and tripping over the shoes.

Drink several cups of cold coffee to keep yourself awake.

Gently wake your family in the morning and serve them a muffin in a package. Don't forget to smile and wish them a nice day when they leave for work and school.

After the family leaves, take a suitcase and go out into the yard. If it's not raining, turn on the sprinkler system and stand in the cold for 30 minutes pretending like your waiting for the crew bus topick you up. Then go inside and wait by your bedroom door for another 30 minutes for an imaginary maid to make up your room.

Change into street clothes and shop for 5 hours. Pick up carry-outfood from a local deli. Go back home. Sit on your bed and eat your meal. Set your alarm clock for 03:00 am so you'll be ready incase you don't get your wake up call. Repeat the above schedule for three days in a row and you'll be ready to work your first flight.

Bravo!

I honestly didn't realize the extent to which my job has infiltrated my brain. Not until I was writing my last exam anyways.

At work we use the phonetic alphabet. It's the airline industry, it makes sense. In the flight attendant world it's mostly just for seat identification, but we know it nonetheless. I didn't think I had actually transferred this practice into my everyday life until in the midst of writing my exam that I realized that in my head I was saying
Question 3...Alpha
Question 4...Delta
Question 5...Echo

On a related note, I found that letting out a semi-muffled chuckle whilst trying to contain your laughter during an exam is somewhat embarrassing. I imagine the class was left wondering why I found totalitarianism so amusing...

Crybaby

"Can you do something about that?"

"About what ma'am?"

"About that baby crying in the row behind me!"

"You want me to do something about a crying baby?"

"Yes, I don't want to listen to that for the next 4 hours. Maybe you can take it to the back for a while so I can have a break from listening to it. "

"Uhh, well I don't know that the baby's mother would approve of me taking her baby from her and unfortunately there are no empty seats on the plane either, so I'm unable to offer you another seat. I apologize but there really isn't anything I can do..."

"Well this is just ridiculous"

"I'll agree with you there ma'am. It sure is."

¿Habla usted español?

I want to learn Spanish.

These are a few reasons behind this big ol' dream of mine.

1) I love it
2) It's a requirement if I decided to do any type of development work. Becoming fluent in under two years wouldn't be the first miracle I've witnessed during my academic career, but it would certainly be the coolest.
3) I want to be able to talk to the ground handlers at the various international destinations we fly to. 'Hello' and 'excuse me' just aren't cutting it.
4) If I actually do as much traveling in Latin American countries as I intend to, Spanish will be infinitely valuable. Whether I need directions to the bathroom or have been stuffed into a trunk by Colombian guerrillas I feel that a strong background in Spanish will go a long way.
5) I want to understand Shakira's lyrics. "Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, so you don't confuse them with mountains" cannot possibly be an accurate translation...

These are the obstacles:

1) No money
2) No time
3) Chronic Anglophone Oriented Tongue Syndrome. No matter how I force it, my tongue refuses to make the beautiful rrrrr's. Burrrrrro. Nada.

These are the solutions:

1) Drop out of school and move to a remote Nicaraguan village. Remain in said remote village until I learn it
2) Download the information into my skull Matrix style
3) Make a deal with the devil, mostly likely involving the resale of my soul
4) Hire Richard Simmons to help me whip my Anglo-Saxon tongue into shape.

The day that I do learn Spanish fluently I vow to renounce English as my first language and henceforth speak it with pride for the rest of my life.

Haitian Migration

This needs to stop.

On May 8th a Turks and Caicos naval vessel repeatedly crashed into an overloaded boat of Haitian migrants causing it to capsize, killing over 60 people.

The plight of the Haitian people is overwhelmingly sad. Haiti holds the ominous title of the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The majority of Haiti's eight million people live in squalid conditions and face of lifetime of abject poverty.

Every year hundreds of Haitians embark the treacherous journey on the ocean with the fleeting hope that they will make it to a new country and have a chance at a new life.

But it wasn't always this way...



Haiti was the first independent black republic and the place of the only successful slave rebellion in history.

It was centuries of exploitation by ruthless colonial rulers and more recently, repeated military interventions by the United States and Canada that have retarded its development and prevented it from industrializing. Now it is the people of Haiti that continue to pay this price.

There isn't a simple solution. The ever increasing number of Haitians that risk their lives escaping is just one way that the situation in Haiti has manifested itself. Still, it desperately requires our attention. Haitian migrants need to be protected and granted asylum whenever possible. The United Nations, the Red Cross and a multitude of NGO's need a stronger presence within Haiti. We must give these people a viable alternative to taking to the deadly seas.

Dear Noah, About That Ark....

Damn you Al Gore! We should have listening to your incessant warnings. Now my neighbourhood is submerged in water. Thank Buddha my Ol' Smokey is not one of these cars...

SARS...HEP C...TB...Oh My!

"A man with a form of tuberculosis so dangerous he is under the first U.S. government-ordered quarantine since 1963 had health officials around the world scrambling Wednesday to find about 80 passengers who sat within five rows of him on two trans-Atlantic flights."

The sheer panic that arisen over this TB infected man who decided to fly across the Atlantic leads me to believe that no one at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention flies very often.

To be honest, I'm kinda surprised that humanity hasn't already succumbed to a horrifying disease.

Let me explain.

In a typical day at work I come into contact with at least 500 passengers. I would estimate that approximately one third of these people are a potential carrier of an incurable, flesh-eating, rapidly progressing disease. Now at least half of these infected passengers are guilty of one of the following transgressions: Nose picking, absence of hand washing, wiping of various fluids on the seat cushions, vomiting on themselves, vomiting on others, vomiting on me, I could go on. The plane itself is basically a germ-ridden tube filled with a menagerie of diseased people. So this Used-Crack-Needle of a plane flies around from city to city, country to country, happily contaminating a good portion of the Western Hemisphere every single day.

Had any employee of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention actually been on a plane they likely would have noticed this and as a result been far less panicked about a simple case of drug resistant tuberculosis. I mean come on, at least they can test for TB.

How Bitty Got Her Groove Back

After the terrible car break-in of '06 I thought I would never again be able to groove in my car. The thieving rats stole my ipod car adapter, thus depriving me of my awesome music. I've been just another shmoe listening to the radio, that is until this weekend...
Not only did I have an awesome birthday, I also got a new adapter. I'm plugged in and ready to groove again.

World, ready yourself for my eclectic mix of music blasting down the highway at all hours of the night. Wyclef Jean, Michael Franti, Jewel.. Oh its on now.