something smells funny

My next trip is a day trip, which means I can get back home tonight. As an international flight attendant I don’t do many of these trips, and to be honest I am not overly fond of them. When I go to work I usually get excited about the destination, not the journey. Today is all about the work. Not about shopping, not about five-star hotels and not about crew drinks.

My liver could use the break though. Some of my friends have an alcohol-free month every now and then. They usually choose February as it is the shortest month. Others choose ‘dry July’. In all seriousness, I think I know more crew with drinking problems than without them.

As Mary always says, ‘If you are not an alcoholic in this job, you are just not taking full advantage of it.’

We hosties have access to a lot of cheap or free booze. Most of the hotels give us a free drink voucher, as well as food and drink discounts, on check-in. Also, duty-free shops at international terminals have alcohol so much cheaper than at home; they give us additional discounts as well.

They’ll be no chance to buy duty-free today though. That is probably a good thing as my kitchen cupboards have more alcohol in them than anything else. Even if I became a raging alcoholic for the next twenty years, I wouldn’t be able to finish all the bottles I already have.

I haven’t bothered about looking up the crew-list this time as it is just a day trip.

Wouldn’t it be so awkward if Princess Gabrielle came long on the trip? I panic for a moment, then realise that she is probably still stuck in Honolulu.

At our work base, there is a lounge area where crew can meet and mingle before going to our briefings. I see my friend Sue, the gym-junkie, there. She looks awful. Since the last time I saw her, she must have visited quite a few plastic surgeons, for her face looks Botoxed, full of collagen and hideous. I think she is pleased to see me, but it is hard to tell because her face has just the one expression. Her lips look like a pouting Daffy Duck with a fat lip.

Using my best Daffy Duck impersonation I chuckle to myself, ‘You look despicable!’

I know that it is hard for an aging woman to keep up with the young girls of this generation. We are forced to look at magazines that feature fourteen-year-old models who have flawless airbrushed skin and fatless stick-insect figures. Sue is, or was, a naturally attractive woman, but she has gone way overboard. If she were my best friend, I would probably tell her about how ridiculous she looks. She is not, so I decide to keep my feelings to myself. She obviously thinks she looks fantastic so maybe I should not offer my criticism.

Sue is not on my day trip. She is off to Buenos Aires in Argentina, and even though her face is unable to change expression, I can tell she is excited. She is a very good salsa- and tango dancer, and regularly goes to South America. I think the good-looking Latino boys might have something to do with this.

I hug Sue and say goodbye, as her briefing starts five minutes before mine. I generally only give light hugs as I do on this occasion, but I can’t help wondering whether Sue might have had a little breast enhancement done as well. They feel like rocks.

If she were wearing a Guess t-shirt, I think I would have answered ‘Implants’.

I go into my own crew-briefing and am reunited with one of the most colourful characters in the whole company: Jane Easton, better known as Jane E or Janie, one of the funniest girls I have ever met. Her home is a suite in a hotel, with no cooking facilities. She goes out on the town every night she is home and is the ultimate party girl. She is friends with rock stars and a host of celebrities, and if there is a major party happening, you can bet that Janie will be there. I love Janie. Hell, everybody loves Janie.

Janie is the sort of person most of us would like to be. She is not pretentious, not afraid to say what she thinks and she doesn’t give a damn about what other people think. In saying that, she is always in the office for those very reasons.

I have done a few flights with Janie over the years, and every one of them has had something memorable happen. I wonder if today is going to be any different.

Janie and I are working on a cart together in zoo class. She has the passengers eating out of her hand. Janie doesn’t just dispense meals but dispenses fun; when she laughs, she really laughs. She not only laughs loud, but her whole body laughs along with her. I am having so much fun.

Back in the galley she randomly begins a conversation about flatulence and about how flying does horrific things to gas-expansion within our bodies. Most women I know don’t talk about flatulence. But then, Janie is not most women. She mentions something about ‘crop-dusting’, and I have no idea what she is talking about.

Janie is in disbelief about my ignorance, ‘You don’t know what crop-dusting is?’

I shake my head in embarrassment.

She explains, ‘You know, when you are out in the cabin and need to fart. Not by choice, but out of necessity. Well, if you let it out all in one go, that could be a problem. So what you do is crop-dusting, you know, just little quiet ones sprayed over a big area. That way even if they smell, the passengers don’t know where it has come from and you are long gone by the time they can blame you for it.’

I laugh hard, not just because Janie’s explanation is funny, but because it is true. It doesn’t matter whether someone is royalty or a homeless person, everyone has to fart, and on an aircraft there is nowhere to hide. The well-mannered ones on an aircraft usually have the courtesy and intelligence to choose their moment and location to rip one out. And even then, things can go horribly wrong. The most embarrassed I think I have ever been in my flying career, fart-wise at least, is when I hid in an empty galley once and, after I thought the coast was clear, I snuck out a fart that was far more violent than I had anticipated. At that exact moment, a male crew member stepped in. He didn’t need to be Einstein to smell the stench and see my mortified red face, and put two and two together.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered to him and ran out of the galley.

What else could I do?

A hostie’s nose is probably the most violated of all the sensors. I’ve smelt things that one just shouldn’t have to smell. Apart from flatulence, my nose has had to tolerate the stink of vomit, cheap aftershave, aviation fumes, smelly socks, bad breath and, my absolute least favourite, bad body odour. There was once a man with such foul body odour that I could not serve him. I won’t use the word ‘refuse’ as I would have been happy to serve him, but I physically just could not. He had no idea how putrid he smelled. It is obvious that people with bad body odour do not know how bad they smell or they would do something about it.

What does one do in this situation? Do I make up some excuse about why I can’t come near him? Do I stay away from him? Do I tell him the truth?

I told him the truth, albeit from a distance. I suggested that he use the soap in the toilets, and while he was gone I grabbed some air-freshener we carry onboard and sprayed his seat and its surrounding area. I had emptied the contents of the whole bottle to subdue his stink, and every passenger in that area thanked me for it.

In the galley, Janie tells me that she didn’t crop-dust in the cabin this time, and I thank her for sparing my senses as I would have been the one to walk through it. She then goes on to demonstrate to me another thing she does on an aircraft when she really needs to fart. I watch her as she approaches the toilet located just outside the galley – this is an unfortunate place to locate a toilet, as we often discover when a passenger has opened the toilet door once he’s finished with his business, and we crew members in the galley are forced to hold our noses, turn away and groan.

Janie points out that the toilet is unoccupied now: the door is not latched, and the placard on it says ‘unoccupied’. Janie backs herself into the bi-fold door and sticks her backside into the toilet area. I hear an almighty farting noise, and then Janie steps forward, allowing the bi-fold door to automatically close behind her.

‘That’s the way you do it,’ Janie boasts as she walks into the galley.

Just as I am about to burst into laughter, that same door opens and a little old lady emerges from the toilet. She was obviously in there and hadn’t locked the door.

I never thought I would see the day where Janie would be embarrassed and regretful about anything, but I was wrong. Today is that day. The little old lady is so disgusted, and Janie is so apologetic.

I don’t know how Janie explained the situation to the manager onboard, but somehow she gets the little old lady upgraded and gives her free bottles of champagne and anything else she can get her hands on. When Janie finally makes it back to the galley, she burst into uncontrolled fits of laughter, and doesn’t stop.