The Skies Are Friendlier Without Me

I always feel a slight twinge of guilt whenever I board an airplane, because as soon as the flight attendant greets me, I somehow feel deep in my heart it should be me standing there greeting passengers instead.

From the time I was old enough to walk, my mother began grooming me to become a flight attendant - or, as they were called back then, a stewardess. In fact, she had the same ambition for all four of her daughters and reminded us frequently as we grew, that being a stewardess was the perfect career choice -you get to travel for free, meet interesting people, and make good money. Not to mention, your relatives could travel for free, too, like, for instance, your mother.

O.K., so my mother had her ulterior motives for attempting to steer us towards a career in aviation. After raising four daughters, you can't blame her for entertaining fantasies of companion-fare globe trotting throughout her retirement years.

But, alas, even with the odds in her favor due to the statistically high number of females she bore, not one of us would grow up to fly the friendly skies. Pretty much because we're all neurotic. One sister experienced an unusually turbulent flight on the way home from Las Vegas in 1988 and has refused to board an airplane since. My mother was along on the flight but was seated towards the back. As the story goes, during the bumpy ride my sister made so much commotion that my mother could hear her all the way in the rear of the plane.

"Would you mind checking on my daughter - she's afraid to fly," my mother whispered to the flight attendant.

"Aww, of course," she answered sympathetically. "How old is she?" she inquired.

"Thirty-one," my mother answered..

Another sister is so afraid of heights she won't even get on an elevator. My eldest sister flies frequently, but, from what I've seen, she's too good-natured to be a flight attendant. If she were in charge, half the passengers would take off unbuckled ("Don't worry about it honey - the captain will never know!"), overhead bins would have suitcases hanging out of them, and some passengers might have to be helped off the plane due to overly-generous distribution of those cute little bottles.

Which brings us to me. I've thought it over every time I've boarded a plane, and searched my soul on a recent flight home from San Francisco, and came up with all the reasons why I could never be a flight attendant. (I will send my mother a copy of this in the unlikely event she's still holding out hope for that free flight to St. Thomas.)

1) I'm too crabby. I pretty much find it impossible to be friendly to people when I don't feel like it. I don't think the airline industry needs any more employees glaring at customers for no apparent reason.

2) I don't like to repeat myself. If a passenger was wearing headphones and I were to ask him if he would like to purchase a meal and he didn't hear me, and then I asked again and he still ignored me, I would not continue to try to get his attention with further polite questioning. I would likely rip the headphones out of his ears and beat him about the head with them. This would not make for a good career move.

3) I'm not good in emergency situations. For example, I tend to tear up during practice fire drills, and that goes the same for when I see a crossing guard guiding a small child across the street. I don't even want to think about what I'd do during a water landing.

4) I can't stand to hear babies cry. And we all know that infants and small children

actually save up their crying tantrums for two places - Wal-Mart, and airplanes.

5) I would threaten people who use the headrest of the seat in front of them as a grip when getting in and out of their seat. And people who kick, push, or yank on their tray table, or unnecessarily jostle the seat in front of them.

6) And, I just don't know if I could say "buuh-bye!" two hundred times in a row with a straight face.